Part of the Snooker Seasons series, this article revisits the 2023/24 snooker season and the key events that shaped the campaign.
The 2023/24 snooker season commenced with a dark cloud hovering over the sport amid the scandal that resulted in the ban of ten players from China.
Many queried the long-term impact this would have in a country that was already experiencing a shift in cue sports popularity toward Heyball.
Not aiding this was the fact that there hadn’t been a tournament in mainland China since 2019 before the outbreak of COVID-19.
It was perhaps good timing, then, that in September shortly after the announcement of the bans was made, the World Snooker Tour returned to China for the popular Shanghai Masters invitational.
Big crowds and an entertaining tournament that saw fan favourite Ronnie O’Sullivan pip world champion Luca Brecel in a closely fought final helped to allay many concerns.
A month later and the first ranking event for four years in China – in Wuhan of all places – was won by Judd Trump.
In many respects, the entire 2023/24 campaign proved to be the Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump show.
The pair combined to feature in 13 finals on the calendar, collecting a staggering ten titles between them – five each.
Trump’s season began with a 9-6 reverse to Barry Hawkins in the final of the European Masters, but by the end of October he already added three more trophies to his collection.
His victory over Ali Carter at the Wuhan Open was sandwiched by wins at the English and Northern Ireland Opens, making him only the fifth player to ever secure a hat-trick of consecutive ranking titles.
Trump later prevailed at the German Masters and the World Open, meaning it was the third time in four seasons that the Englishman had won at least five tournaments with ranking status.
O’Sullivan, meanwhile, was continuing to prove his worth as the sport’s world number one.
The Rocket took his exceptional tally of Triple Crown titles to 23 with back-to-back successes at the UK Championship and the Masters.
While his 10-7 victory over Ding Junhui in York was a friendly affair between two close friends, a similar three-frame win over Carter in the final of the Masters boasted significantly more animosity.
The pair, no strangers to controversial incidents against one another, traded barbs after a highly charged affair that both would later admit to regretting.
After beating Trump to claim the World Grand Prix title in Leicester, O’Sullivan then reigned at the first World Snooker Tour event to be staged in Saudi Arabia.
The World Masters of Snooker invitational stirred controversy with its introduction of a new golden ball worth 20 points that could only be potted at the end of a 147 break to create a new maximum break of 167.
It was a gimmicky addition to an event that lacked any charisma, but O’Sullivan emerged with another lucrative prize courtesy of a second final defeat over Brecel.
While the Belgian Bullet had performed decently in non-ranking events – soon after teaming up with Reanne Evans to win the World Mixed Doubles – his form elsewhere had been abysmal.
Indeed, Brecel was really struggling to sustain the kind of level that he conjured up in fantastic fashion to claim the previous term’s World Championship title.
The 29 year-old returned to Sheffield bang out of form and was never likely to challenge the Curse of the Crucible, quickly losing in the opening round to David Gilbert.
In fact, much of the 2024 edition of the World Championship was low on quality with tough table conditions contributing to a below-par number of high breaks and centuries being made.
World number 12 Kyren Wilson was the only player from the top 16 to make it to the semi-finals, with the season’s star performers O’Sullivan and Trump each exiting at the quarter-final hurdle.
Wilson, in contrast to a lot of the other big names of the sport, arrived in Sheffield fresh on the back of a quiet spell during which he rarely featured at the business end of events.
Aside from encountering John Higgins in the last eight, the Kettering cueist took full advantage of his kinder run to the final where he overcame qualifier Jak Jones 18-14 to become the sport’s newest world snooker champion.
Elsewhere, Mark Allen ended the 2023/24 season as snooker’s world number one – usurping O’Sullivan into first place despite continuing his disappointing record at the Crucible through a last-16 loss to Higgins.
Allen triumphed at the Snooker Shoot Out and the Players Championship soon after his success over Trump at the prestigious Champion of Champions invitational in Bolton.
There were a brace of ranking titles too for Mark Williams and Gary Wilson, with the former landing glories at the British Open and the Tour Championship.
Wilson successfully defended his Scottish Open crown before adding the Welsh Open, making it three Home Nations titles in the space of just 14 months on the circuit.
For Williams, the Welshman’s Tour Championship triumph was particularly impressive as it saw him produce an incredible last-gasp clearance to beat Tom Ford in the opening round before reeling off victories over the top three ranked players in the world – Trump, Allen, and O’Sullivan.
Shaun Murphy was the season’s initial winner courtesy of his victory in the ranking version of Championship League Snooker, while Mark Selby was later the last man standing at the invitational edition.
In terms of Chinese snooker, it was a promising bounce-back year following the disappointment of what transpired before.
Ding Junhui continued to be the prominent flag bearer and reached a couple of big finals, while rising star Si Jiahui made his maiden showpiece clash at the German Masters in Berlin.
A surprise package was undoubtedly Zhang Anda, who out of nowhere not only broke into the top 64 for the first time in his 15-year professional career but also reached three ranking finals.
At the International Championship, Zhang stunned Ding and O’Sullivan en route to the title-deciding bout where he compiled a 147 break in a 10-6 win over Tom Ford.
In doing so, the affable player known as Mighty Mouse became only the sixth player from mainland China to win a ranking title.
On the women’s circuit, 20 year-old Bai Yulu won her maiden world title with a dramatic 6-5 victory over women’s world number one Mink Nutcharut.
Yet even greater success for the nation’s contingent during the upcoming 2024/25 snooker season would signal the coming of snooker’s biggest Chinese boom yet.
<–2022/23 Snooker Season
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This Snooker Seasons series will continue in the future.
Featured photo credit: WST