Saturday was the busiest day of the week for the game's scorekeepers. Landywood got its billiards group stage done, Sydney finished its groups overnight, Belfast starts this morning and Makati goes live at lunchtime. Here's where things stand this Sunday morning.
Landywood — the big guns fire before the Worlds
The scores from Saturday's English Open group stage are now up on the World Billiards results service, and they read like a warning to everyone in Monday's World Championship field. The event is played to the timed format, so the size of a break depends partly on when the clock runs out. Even so, two of them stood out.
- David Causier, world champion and English Open holder, won all four group matches and gave away 200 points in total. He beat Steve Hassack 863–28, with an unfinished 790 that only the clock stopped, and Paul Roberts 851–26 with breaks of 339 and 316.
- Pankaj Advani also went four from four. He made a 692 and a 126 in an 818–18 win over Ian Dennis, a 314 against Carl Walter Steiner and a 204 against Darren Clark.
- Geet Sethi, back at Landywood for his first world championship in years, won all three of his scored matches: 312–166 against Chris Coumbe, 313–139 against Jason Colebrook, and 405–87 against Mark Hill with breaks of 109 and 133.
- Peter Gilchrist, Robert Hall, Peter Sheehan (with a 488 against Rishabh Thakkar), Dhruv Sitwala, Dhvaj Haria, Ryan Mears and Christian Kirk also won every group match. In Group I, Jonathan Marwood and John Hughes finished on three wins each.
The knockouts and the final are today. The World Championship then runs at the same club from Monday to Thursday, with the Women's World Championship on Wednesday. World Billiards says Table 1 will be streamed.
Sydney — four seeds, not a frame dropped
The group stage of the Australian Women's Open is over, and the favourites barely broke sweat. According to the published group tables, Mink Nutcharut, Reanne Evans and Anupama Ramachandran all won their groups 8–0 on frames, and Ng On-yee won hers 6–0.
- Group A: Mink first, Xuejun Alice Wu second on three wins.
- Group B: Evans first, Joey Tohme second ahead of Jazmin Brown on frames won.
- Group C: Ng first, and Theresa Whitten beat Jia Shuangyu 2–0 in the last group match to take second.
- Group D: Anupama first, home number one Jessica Woods second on three wins.
- Group E: the surprise of the weekend. Unseeded Kenny Chandra topped the group on frame difference after beating last year's runner-up Narucha Phoemphul 2–0, with Phoemphul and Lau Yuk Fan also on three wins.
- Group F: Cheung Yee Ting won all three, including a 2–1 against So Man Yan.
World Women's Snooker says the top two in every group and the four best third-placed players go through. The knockout draw hadn't been published when we went to press. The last 16 and the quarter-finals are best of five, and the semis and final best of seven, played on Monday and Tuesday in Sydney, which is overnight for UK viewers.
Makati — two points from history
The Rest of the World lead Team Asia 9–4 going into the last night of the Reyes Cup. They need two more points to take the trophy out of Asia for the first time. Asia, on four, need seven more. If it ever got to 10–10, the captains would each pick a doubles pair for a decider.
The visitors aren't hiding their confidence. Fedor Gorst told the World Nineball Tour: "The tables have completely turned compared to last year… Team ROW has the better players. Just one more day to get the job done." Shane Van Boening gave the credit to his captain, saying Ralf Souquet had "taken it that extra step to make us almost unstoppable together."
Aleksa Pečelj, who has been the find of the week, was more careful: "Team Asia could pull off a miracle so we can't be complacent." Carlo Biado's message from the Asian dressing room was a simple one: "anything can happen going into Day Four. We've all got to stay focused and trust in our game."
The day starts with the team match at 7pm in Manila, which is noon UK time. It's live on WNT TV and ESPN+, and on One Sports in the Philippines. Each member of the winning team takes home $20,000.
Belfast — the defence begins
The Northern Ireland Open starts at the Waterfront Hall this morning, and Jack Lisowski opens his title defence against Huang Jiahao at 1pm. He told the News Letter that last year's 9–8 final win over Judd Trump was "the best week of my life", and said it had probably changed him as a person: "Every single interview for five years, pretty much, they'd say, when are you going to win one? It probably was getting me down."
Si Jiahui v Wang Xinbo and Xiao Guodong v Sam Craigie start the day at 10am. Stephen Maguire v Anthony McGill is the all-Scottish tie of the afternoon, and Neil Robertson v Ricky Walden is the pick of the evening session. As of yesterday, Ronnie O'Sullivan was still in the draw for his Monday match with Cheung Ka Wai. The tournament is live on TNT Sports and HBO Max in the UK and on WST Play in many other territories.
Goyang — Korea's three-cushion pros are back
The NH Nonghyup Card PBA-LPBA Championship starts today at KINTEX with the men's qualifying round, and the women's last 128 starts at 4:20pm local time (8:20am UK). The women's final is on Sunday 25 October and the men's, worth 100 million won to the winner, on Monday 26 October, per Yonhap.
Grassroots — Sias goes unbeaten in Carolina
AZBilliards reports that Joao Sias went through unbeaten to win Jersey Girl Billiards' Breaktime Battle 3 at Breaktime Billiards in Clemmons, North Carolina, on the 9–12 October weekend. The split-bracket event drew 71 players, and Sias beat Matt Bulfin 9–2 in the final. Ann McElveen won the Ladies event, Robert Wilkerson the Friday warm-up, and Jas Makhani and Lucas Courtney split the Second Chance.
Coming up
- World Billiards Championship: Landywood, Monday 19 to Thursday 22 October. Causier defends, and the Women's World Championship is on Wednesday 21st.
- Roobet Philippines Open: Gateway Mall, Quezon City, 20–24 October. Most of the Reyes Cup cast head straight over for a $100,000, 128-player single-elimination event. David Alcaide defends, and it's live on WNT TV.
- EPBF European Championships, seniors and ladies: Gandia, Spain, from Monday 19 October, starting with straight pool.
- Niche Cues Women's Snooker Open: Kuala Lumpur, 24–27 October. Bai Yulu defends at the WWS Tour's first-ever event in Malaysia.
Feature image: “World Billiards Championship 2025” by BennyOnTheLoose, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0.
