Luca Brecel secured a morale-boosting victory to reach the 2026 Northern Ireland Open as the qualifiers for the event ended on Wednesday in Leicester.
Brecel is languishing down near the top 64 cut-off point for tour survival on the provisional end-of-season snooker rankings.
The 2023 world champion hadn’t qualified for any ranking events this season, but that finally changed as he overcame Mitchell Mann 4-1 to safely secure his spot in Belfast.
Among the others to make it through the preliminary phase were experienced pros Tom Ford, Ricky Walden, Matthew Stevens, and Ryan Day.
There was also a timely triumph for Jordan Brown, who like Brecel might be sucked into a tour survival scrap come the end of the campaign.
Antrim’s Brown qualified for his home tournament with a 4-0 defeat of Julien Leclercq.
There were wins elsewhere for Aaron Hill, Matthew Selt, Michael Holt, and recent British Open semi-finalist Liam Highfield.
Legend Jimmy White won his first-round match against Sean O’Sullivan but was ultimately denied a return to the Waterfront Hall by Xu Si.
Marco Fu, Yuan Sijun, Stan Moody, and Jackson Page were among the others who failed to qualify.
The 32 qualifiers join the top 32 seeds from the world rankings who are automatically in the draw at the last-64 point, with the tournament proper running from October 18 to 25.
The full list of results from the 2026 Northern Ireland Open qualifiers is below.
2026 Northern Ireland Open qualifiers: results
Round of 128
Huang Jiahao 4-1 Reanne Evans
Liu Yang 4-1 Connor Benzey
Wang Xinbo 4-1 Liam Graham
Mateusz Baranowski w/o Gong Chenzhi
Ross Muir 4-1 Andrew Higginson
Iulian Boiko 4-3 Luo Zetao
Alfie Burden 4-1 Fergal Quinn
Liam Davies 4-3 Hammad Miah
Louis Heathcote 4-2 Craig Steadman
Antoni Kowalski 4-1 Oliver Brown
Sam Craigie 4-1 Anton Kazakov
Jimmy White 4-1 Sean O’Sullivan
Zhao Hanyang 4-2 Mahmoud El Hareedy
Xu Yichen 4-2 Mina Awad
Marco Fu 4-0 Joel Connolly
Ian Burns 4-0 Stuart Carrington
Gao Yang 4-0 Panchaya Channoi
Oliver Sykes 4-0 Alexander Ursenbacher
Cheung Ka Wai 4-3 Artemijs Zizins
Yao Pengcheng 4-1 Bai Yulu
Liam Pullen 4-0 Paul Norris
Michael Larkov 4-1 Sahil Nayyar
Mitchell Mann 4-3 Liu Wenwei
Chatchapong Nasa 4-1 Darragh Gallagher
Liam Highfield 4-1 Phil O’Kane
David Grace 4-2 Deng Haohui
Dylan Emery 4-0 Jamie Clarke
Ashley Hugill 4-2 Lan Yuhao
Onyee Ng 4-3 Florian Nuessle
Julien Leclercq 4-1 Michal Szubarczyk
Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon 4-1 Steven Hallworth
Leone Crowley 4-1 Ashley Carty
Round of 96
Huang Jiahao 4-2 Liu Hongyu
Anthony McGill 4-1 Liu Yang
Wang Xinbo 4-1 David Lilley
Mateusz Baranowski 4-1 Yuan Sijun
Aaron Hill 4-3 Ross Muir
Ben Mertens 4-0 Iulian Boiko
Alfie Burden 4-1 Jimmy Robertson
Liam Davies 4-1 Fan Zhengyi
Louis Heathcote 4-2 Lyu Haotian
Matthew Selt 4-0 Antoni Kowalski
Sam Craigie 4-1 Ishpreet Singh Chadha
Xu Si 4-2 Jimmy White
He Guoqiang 4-3 Zhao Hanyang
Jamie Jones 4-2 Xu Yichen
Matthew Stevens 4-1 Marco Fu
Ricky Walden 4-3 Ian Burns
Gao Yang 4-2 Long Zehuang
Oliver Sykes 4-3 Zak Surety
Cheung Ka Wai 4-3 Oliver Lines
Yao Pengcheng 4-0 Stan Moody
Liam Pullen 4-0 Ben Woollaston
Robbie Williams 4-1 Michael Larkov
Luca Brecel 4-1 Mitchell Mann
Martin O’Donnell 4-1 Chatchapong Nasa
Liam Highfield 4-1 Jiang Jun
Tom Ford 4-0 David Grace
Daniel Wells 4-0 Dylan Emery
Ryan Day 4-2 Ashley Hugill
Michael Holt 4-0 Onyee Ng
Jordan Brown 4-0 Julien Leclercq
T Tirapongpaiboon 4-2 Jackson Page
Scott Donaldson 4-2 Leone Crowley
Featured photo credit: WST
