After the conclusion of the 2018 edition of Q School, confirming new tour players for the upcoming season, the next best 64 from the events are set to begin their long quest for a tour card as the new 2018/2019 Challenge Tour commences this weekend.
The top 64 players on the Q School order of merit (excluding those that won professional tour cards) are all eligible for entry along with a series of WPBSA invitations for this weekend's opening event, taking place in Burton at the same venue as Q School, so it will be familiar territory for the competitors.
In all, there will be ten events on the Challenge Tour across the UK and Europe, with a number of them coinciding with events on the main tour. When all is said and done by March 2019 the top two players on the Challenge Tour order of merit will earn two-year tour cards to move up to the professional tour.
2018/2019 Challenge Tour Calendar:
Event 1 - June 2-3 - Burton
Event 2 - July 10-11 - Preston Guildhall
Event 3 - July 28-29 - Riga, Latvia
Event 4 - August 27-28 - Furth, Germany
Event 5 - September 22-23 - TBC Snooker Club in the UK
Event 6 - October 4-5 - Lommel, Belgium
Event 7 - October 13-14 - Preston Guildhall
Event 8 - TBC dates in November - TBC venue in Europe
Event 9 - TBC dates in January - TBC Snooker Club in the UK
Event 10 - March 3-4 - Barnsley
The good news for the players is that a number of events will be played in venues that coincide with tour events. The first event comes straight off the back of Q School, while event 2 follows the first set of pro tour qualifiers for the new season in Preston. Event 3 is played alongside the final two days of the Riga Masters, while the fourth event in Germany will follow the Paul Hunter Classic. Event 6 will be played during the European Masters, while the seventh event follows International Championship qualifying in Preston and the final event will follow the qualifiers for the China Open.
Events 5 and 9 are being played at snooker clubs in the UK, following a press release from March that detailed this information, and mentioned that clubs must be gold club members of the English Partnership for Snooker and Billiards in order to apply to host an event. While these clubs are yet to be confirmed a list of 25 147 Gold Club members can be viewed here.
Eligible Challenge Tour Players - Q School Order of Merit:
1 - David Lilley
2 - Dechawat Poomjaeng
3 - James Cahill
4 - Adam Duffy
5 - Luke Simmonds
6 - Jamie Cope
7 - Fang Xiongman
8 - Farakh Ajaib
9 - Andy Hicks
10 - Michael Judge
11 - Kuldesh Johal
12 - Hu Hao
13 - Chen Zhe
14 - Geng Mingqi
15 - Mitchell Mann
16 - Shane Castle
17 - Simon Bedford
18 - Ben Hancorn
19 - Steven Hallworth
20 - Leo Fernandez
21 - Jamie O'Neill
22 - Jackson Page
23 - Laxman Rawat
24 - Fraser Patrick
25 - Wang ZePeng
26 - Joel Walker
27 - Liu Jiaming
28 - Kristjan Helgason
29 - Peter Devlin
30 - Wang Yuchen
31 - Barry Pinches
32 - David Grace
33 - Sydney Wilson
34 - Lee Daegyu
35 - Greg Casey
36 - Himanshu Jain
37 - Phil O'Kane
38 - Jake Nicholson
39 - Heikki Niva
40 - Callum Lloyd
41 - Jamie McArdle
42 - Jamie Barrett
43 - Jeff Cundy
44 - Patrick Whelan
45 - Dylan Emery
46 - Brian Ochoiski
47 - Andreas Ploner
48 - Lucky Vatnani
49 - Haydon Pinhey
50 - Ning Kang
51 - Long Zehuang
52 - Ma TingPeng
53 - Sean Maddocks
54 - Brandon Sargeant
55 - John Foster
56 - Brandon Hall
57 - David Craggs
58 - Matthew Day
59 - Felix Frede
60 - Charlie Walters
61 - Anthony Jeffers
62 - Adam Edge
63 - Andrew Smith
64 - Chae Ross
Of these 64 players, the final two in Smith and Ross both got in on countback after a total of eight players finished tied on 20 frames from the three events. In total, 14 different nationalities are represented by the 64 above players with: 36 English, 10 Chinese, 3 Welsh, 3 Republic of Irish, 3 Indian, 1 Northern Irish, 1 Scottish, 1 Thai, 1 French, 1 German, 1 Icelandic, 1 Austrian, 1 Finnish and 1 South Korean.
Eight of the players in the Challenge Tour dropped off of the professional tour at the end of the 2017/2018 while a number of others have been on the main tour in the past. Such players include the likes of Adam Duffy, James Cahill and Mitchell Mann who all came close to securing tour cards this year and will be among the top contenders on the Challenge Tour.
The invited players are all eligible to enter on top of the 64 (making a total of 70 players), but only once the entries dip below the 64 mark (including invited players) will further players be called up based on the Q School standings.
The following players were the five highest ranked not to qualify for the Challenge Tour:
65 - Dylan Craig
66 - Marc Davis
67 - Joshua Cooper
68 - Wu Shengguang
69 - John Pritchett
Challenge Tour Invitations:
As mentioned above a total of eight players were set to be invited to the Challenge Tour this season. Adam Stefanow was set to be one of these players as the 2018 WSF Championship runner-up, but Stefanow was recently given a two-year tour card instead. Kristjan Helgason was also set to be one of the invited players after making the WSF Championship semi-finals, but Helgason has qualified by right after finishing 28th on the Q School order of merit. I do not believe that this will mean that the 65th player from the Q School order of merit qualifies, and that instead the invitations and therefore the number of eligible players is simply reduced.
These players have been given invitations to the Challenge Tour:
- Kacper Filipiak - 2018 WSF Championship semi-finalist
- Ng On Yee - 2018 Women's World Champion
- Reanne Evans - End of 2017/2018 season Women's World No.1
- Latvian National Champion (Rodion Judin)
- Belgian National Champion (Kevin VanHove)
- TBC - EBSA Host European Federation.
The invitations above have been written as published by World Snooker and the WPBSA. The current Latvian national champion is Rodion Judin who won this title a little over a week ago. Meanwhile, Kevin VanHove is in the draw for the first event as the Belgian national champion. Meanwhile, the third national nomination is most likely yet to be confirmed due to the pending confirmation of the host European venue for the eighth Tour event in November.
Challenge Tour Prize Money
A total prize fund of £100,000 is up for grabs during the ten events, with £10,000 on offer in each event. The money breakdown will be the same for each of the ten events making them equal in weight. The prizes on offer in each event are as follows:
Winner = £2,000
Runner-Up = £1,000
Losing Semi-finalists = £700
Losing Quarter-finalists = £500
Last 16 losers = £200
Last 32 losers = £125
To offer some extra contest to the breakdown, especially for those players who lose in the earlier rounds, the entry fees for each event are £50.
Further Information
- All matches in the Challenge Tour from the last 64 or preliminary rounds to the final are played over the best-of-5 frames.
A full format of play for the two days has now been released and the first and second round matches will be played on the opening day, with the remaining rounds coming on the final day.
Event 1 - First Round Draw:
Kevin VanHove Vs Peter Devlin
John Foster Vs Felix Frede
Andy Milliard Vs Lee Shanker
Charlie Walters Vs Leo Fernandez
Adam Edge Vs Peter Delaney (Winner plays David Grace in round two)
Heikki Niva Vs Kuldesh Johal
Andrew Smith Vs Patrick Whelan
Michael Collumb Vs Adam Duffy
David Lilley Vs Jeff Cundy
James Cahill Vs Barry Pinches (Winner plays Jack Bradford in round two)
Luke Simmonds Vs Himanshu Dinesh Jain (Winner plays Iulian Boiko in round two)
Oliver Brown Vs Rodion Judin
Andreas Ploner Vs Joshua Cooper
Jake Nicholson Vs William Lemons
Bash Maqsood Vs Sydney Wilson
Lee Daegyu Vs Ben Hancorn
Joel Walker Vs Dylan Emery
Mitchell Mann Vs Joshua Thomond
Jamie Trump Vs Sergey Isaenko
Reanne Evans Vs Heather Clare (Winner plays Chae Ross in round two)
Brandon Sargeant Vs Phil O'Kane
Brandon Hall Vs Anthony Jeffers
Daniel Gorton Vs Matthew Day
Lucky Vatnani Vs Callum Lloyd
Daniel Womersley Vs Farakh Ajaib (Winner plays Sean Maddocks in round two)
Jackson Page Vs Steven Hallworth
Jamie O'Neill Vs Andy Marriott
As you can see the first Challenge Tour event has come up short on entries with only 59 players in total making up the draw. The following players have gotten in courtesy of non-entries:
Joshua Cooper (67th on Order of Merit)
Michael Collumb (70th on Order of Merit)
Daniel Womersley (71st on Order of Merit)
Jack Bradford (73rd on Order of Merit)
Lee Shanker (74th on Order of Merit)
William Lemons (78th on Order of Merit)
Sergey Isaenko (79th on Order of Merit)
Joshua Thomond (84th on Order of Merit)
Oliver Brown (104th on Order of Merit)
Andy Marriott (107th on Order of Merit)
Daniel Gorton (116th on Order of Merit)
Jamie Trump (120th on Order of Merit)
Andy Milliard (124th on Order of Merit)
Bash Maqsood (126th on Order of Merit)
Iulian Boiko (129th on Order of Merit)
Peter Delaney (171st on Order of Merit)
Heather Clare (172nd on Order of Merit)
As for some of the non-entries these include: Dechawat Poomjaeng, Jamie Cope, Fang Xiongman, Andy Hicks, Michael Judge, Chen Zhe, Simon Bedford, Wang Yuchen, Shane Castle and Kristjan Helgason.
Hopefully this blog has answered a few questions that you all had about the Challenge Tour and much more will become clear as the weekend progresses.
After a tiring couple of weeks for all of these players involved a day off between the final day of the final Q School event and the start of the Challenge Tour will hopefully help to give all the players a good chance of performing at their very best. The recently dropped off pro players are the ones many will be looking at to win these events, along with other experienced ex-professional players. Keep your eyes on the likes of David Grace, Adam Duffy, James Cahill, Joel Walker, Mitchell Mann and Jackson Page who I think will go well over the course of this weekend, and one of them may be the player to take home the first Challenge Tour title.
There are also plenty of young players involved who will be looking to gain a lot more experience this season, to help their development ahead of next season's Q School and another attempt to get on the pro tour. After seeing a total of 7/12 tour cards going to players who had just dropped off the main tour this year, the Challenge Tour will look to bridge the gap between the pro players who have dropped off tour and had regular tournament playing time, and the amateur players who have not had the same opportunities during the season when Q School 2019 comes around.
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