Monday evening, 2 November 2026
Evening, all. At lunchtime I said Nanjing's 11:30 GMT session was only just getting going. It finished as one of the strangest afternoons of snooker I can remember. The world number one went through after his opponent potted the winning ball, and the world champion is on his way home. Further down there's a billiards title in Sydney, two 16-year-olds making their mark in Yanggu and the Korean team league, so stick around.
The in-off that handed Zhao the match
Sam Craigie had Zhao Xintong beaten. Per WST, he missed a match-ball blue in the deciding frame, and Zhao cleared the colours to tie it at 72–72 and bring the black back for a re-spot. TNT Sports say Zhao had missed escaping from a snooker nine times in that same frame.
Both players had chances on the re-spotted black. Then Craigie potted a great long one into the bottom-right pocket. For a second he'd won, but the white kept going, tracked towards the green pocket and dropped in. That's a foul, so Zhao won it 6–5.
It's a second week running of heartbreak for Craigie. WST point out that he lost his Northern Ireland Open semi-final 6–5 to Kyren Wilson after leading 5–3.
Zhao was gracious about it. "I am so lucky today. When the frame finished I spoke to Sam. I just said he was so unlucky and that he is playing really well now," he told WST. "I thought I had lost. When he potted the black, I was standing at the camera. I saw the black straight to the pocket but I didn't see the cue ball." He plays Aaron Hill, who beat Daniel Wells 6–2, in the last 16.
Maguire ends Wu's title defence on the final pink
Stephen Maguire beat Wu Yize 6–5. Wu won this title last year and is the reigning world champion. Per WST, it's Maguire's first win over him after losing 5–4 in both their previous meetings.
Wu led 3–1 at the interval. Maguire then made breaks of 58, 78, 73 and 133 and won four of the next five frames to lead 5–4. In between came the moment TNT Sports caught on camera: Maguire missed a pink in frame eight that would have kept his comeback going, and he smashed the black up the table in frustration as Wu levelled at 4–4. Wu forced a decider with a 110 and led 50–0 in it. Then he missed a long red, and Maguire cleared with 68 to the pink to win.
"You can't beat things like that. It is what gets my butterflies going. If I didn't clear up there, it would have killed me," Maguire said, per WST. "I don't like giving it a fist pump but it comes out when I miss and I punch the table. I'm just that person." He reached the semi-finals in Nanjing last year and plays Ding Junhui on Tuesday.
The rest of the 11:30 GMT session
- Chang Bingyu 6–3 Chris Wakelin: four centuries from Chang, according to the results listings. WST say he's now provisionally 16th in the rankings, the spot that brings automatic entry to the UK Championship, and Ding is close behind him.
- Kyren Wilson 6–1 Ryan Day
- Aaron Hill 6–2 Daniel Wells
Tuesday's last 16 (best of 11, times GMT)
- 06:00: Oliver Lines v Kyren Wilson, Si Jiahui v Hossein Vafaei, Yuan Sijun v Chang Bingyu, Aaron Hill v Zhao Xintong
- 11:30: Stephen Maguire v Ding Junhui, Fan Zhengyi v Liam Davies, Wang Xinbo v Marco Fu, Mark Williams v John Higgins
The quarter-finals are on Wednesday. If the draw holds, Maguire or Ding plays Lines or Wilson, Fan or Davies plays Si or Vafaei, Wang or Fu plays Williams or Higgins, and Yuan or Chang plays Hill or Zhao. Coverage is on TNT Sports and HBO Max in the UK, Eurosport across much of Europe and WST Play elsewhere.
English billiards: Mifsud wins on home soil in Sydney
Away from snooker, Steve Mifsud has won the World Billiards Sydney Open at the Mounties Club. He beat Michael Pearson 557–344 in the 120-minute final, per the WPBSA. Mifsud is a multiple Australian national champion, and he did it the hard way. He beat Michael Hough 552–243 in the knockout stage, then knocked out the defending champion and top seed Peter Gilchrist 385–333 in the quarter-finals with breaks of 93 and 86. Gilchrist had made the tournament high break of 208 in the groups. Mifsud then beat Graeme Wright 407–250 in the semi-finals.
Pearson, who beat Roger Farebrother in his semi, made the highest break of the final with 87. Mifsud made five breaks over 50 and won by 213 points. It's a level-four ranking event, and the World Billiards season continues with the Queensland Open at Redcliffe Snooker Club, 20 to 22 November.
Also in billiards: Pankaj Advani, fresh from his 29th world title in Birmingham, told ANI that a televised cue sports league "could do wonders for our game" in India. He also called for simpler, faster formats and more academies, and said there's no shortage of talent in the country.
Three-cushion: teenagers make a fast start in Yanggu
The first pre-qualifying round of the UMB World Cup in Yanggu is done. Per MK Billiard News, two 16-year-olds, Kim Dae-hyun and Kim Hyun-woo, both won their groups with two wins each.
Kim Dae-hyun had the best average of the round (1.538). He beat Colombia's Miguel Ángel Ruiz 30–11, then came from behind in his second match with a high run of 12 to win 30–28. He left school to concentrate on billiards and said that in his first World Cup he was very nervous and just focused on cutting out mistakes (my translation). Kim Hyun-woo only got in as a replacement when Colombia's Harry Zamora didn't turn up. He beat Turkey's Adem Doğanoğlu 30–6 and then won 30–29.
Park Se-jeong and Heo Chae-won, Korea's top two women at three-cushion, also topped their groups. Jung Yeok-keun had the second-best average of the round (1.395). Vietnam's Trương Huỳnh Quốc Đạt opened with a 30–13 win over Lim Won-mo, per Thể Thao 247.
Seventeen Koreans are in Tuesday's second qualifying round. The 32-player main draw starts on Friday, and the final is on Sunday at 18:00 local time (09:00 GMT). Cho Myung-woo is going for his fourth World Cup of the season after Bogotá, Ankara and Lier. Heo Jung-han, back at number one in Korea's domestic rankings, hasn't won a World Cup since Ankara in June 2024. Every match is streamed on Soop.
Korea: Crown Haitai pull clear in the PBA Team League
Day three of round four of the PBA Team League was played today at Goyang's KINTEX PBA Stadium. Per MK Billiard News, Crown Haitai beat round-one winners Woori Financial Capital 4–0. It's their third straight win, and they're top of the round on their own with eight points. David Martínez won sets one and three and Baek Min-ju won sets two and four. In the last set, Baek and Noh Byung-chan were 8–6 down and won 9–8.
- Huons 4–0 Harim: Kang Dong-koong won two sets, including a 15–12 singles win over Kim Young-won where he finished with a run of five. Huons are second on seven points.
- Welcome Savings Bank 4–1 SY: newcomer T. Nguyen won the last set 11–10 for his first team-league win.
- NH NongHyup Card 4–3 High1 Resort: Đào Văn Ly closed out the seventh set 11–0 with a run of eight to finish.
- Hana Card 4–0 PBA Breakers: the Breakers have now lost 11 in a row.
Round four runs until Sunday 8 November.
Pool: what's coming up
- Pan-American Heyball Open: the second edition starts tomorrow in Arequipa, Peru, and runs until 8 November, per the Pan American Billiards Confederation.
- Universal Open Ho Chi Minh (11 to 15 November): a World Nineball Tour Silver ranking event at Sniper Billiards Club. There are 128 players and a $63,000 prize fund. It's double elimination down to the last 64, then single elimination, with a race-to-13 final, per WNT. Live on WNT TV.
- Universal Bangkok Open (17 to 21 November): the next stop, straight after Vietnam, with $69,400 in prize money.
- Mosconi Cup: 27 to 30 November in Orlando, Florida.
Also coming up
- Snooker: Champion of Champions, 9 to 15 November.
- Amateur snooker and billiards: the IBSF World Championships in Indore, 12 to 21 November.
- Korean pro carom: PBA Dream Tour event five, 14 to 17 November, then the sixth LPBA (21 to 28 November) and PBA (23 to 29 November) individual tour events.
So, was Craigie's in-off the cruellest end to a match you've ever seen, or does it just come with the re-spotted black? And who's coming through Maguire v Ding in the morning? Let me know below.
— Reggie
Feature image: “Zhao Xintong 2026 (1)” (Zhao Xintong at the German Masters 2026) by Andrej146, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC0 1.0 (public domain dedication).
