China’s Zhao shines light on Swedish snooker with 147, Q Tour win

STOCKHOLM: China’s Zhao Xintong’s maximum 147 break in a small club in Sweden shone a spotlight on the snooker satellite tour that seldom hits the headlines but is essential to the sport’s constant need for fresh talent and growth in new markets.

Only a handful of spectators saw the 27-year-old make his maximum in the final frame of a 4-1 win over Hong Kong’s 14-year-old Shaun Liu on the second-tier Q Tour on Saturday, but news of his exploits quickly spread through the snooker world.

“Obviously it gets us a bit of extra attention and it’s special for the Q Tour as well because it’s actually the first 147 in the history of the tour,” Swedish Billiards Federation president Andy Nettleton, who witnessed the break, told Reuters. Zhao went on beat England’s Craig Steadman 4-3 in Sunday’s final to win the tournament and his presence, not to mention his 147, gave the game a much-needed boost in Sweden.

“It’s just going round and round in my head - how can we make something more of this for Swedish snooker? What can we build?” Nettleton said, adding that he was relishing the challenge of coming up with the answers.

Zhao, winner of the UK Championship in 2021 and tipped by the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan for greatness before a 20-month ban following a match-fixing probe in China, is using the Q Tour to get back into the top ranks of the game. Zhao accepted charges of being a party to another player fixing two matches, as well as betting on matches himself.

With his world ranking scrubbed and his ban only recently expired, Zhao had to take part in Friday’s qualifying rounds alongside Sweden’s best amateurs and local club players, all aiming to make it to Saturday’s last 64.

Entry to the Q Tour event was open to anyone willing to pay the 75 pounds ($98.00) entry fee and Nettleton himself took part, as did Brian O’Grady, Sweden’s number 13-ranked player, who was keen to pit himself against some formidable competition.

“If you’re a climber, you want to have a tough mountain - otherwise, what’s the point?” the Irish-born Swedish citizen told Reuters. “Getting beaten by somebody really, really much better than you is actually nearly an education in itself because you see the centimetre precision, the perfection of how they move the white ball around. It’s quite inspiring - scary and inspiring,” O’Grady added.

NEW TALENT

The Q Tour is the step below the World Professional Billiards & Snooker Association (WPBSA) Tour, and with only the top 64 pros guaranteed to retain their places on the main tour each year, new talent is always in demand.

The overall winner of the Q Tour is guaranteed a spot on next year’s main tour, with the next 16 players going into a playoff for three more tour cards, tournament director James Chambers told Reuters. For players like British-born Australian Ryan Thomersen, the Q Tour represents a second chance.

“I dropped off the pro tour last season, I just had a poor two years on tour, and I really want to just get my game back in the amateur scene, and then hopefully just get back on (the main tour) next season, that’s the goal,” he told Reuters.

“When you then come back to these events, it sort of grounds you a bit more.” The Q Tour offers an entirely different environment to the one at the annual World Championship held at the Crucible in Sheffield, where sell-out crowds watch the best players in the game in hushed silence. Though they still wear the waistcoat-and-dickie-bow attire of the top-level pros, players on the Q Tour referee their own games in the early rounds, spotting the balls for each other and keeping score themselves.

Good shots are greeted not by rapturous applause but by gentle raps of the knuckles on the wooden rail that separates the handful of spectators from the tables. By Sunday evening’s final, the crowd had swelled somewhat and a referee oversaw proceedings as Zhao took his latest step towards a return to the big time, receiving a large silver trophy and 3,000 pounds in prize money for his winning effort.