Good evening from Reggie. The Group Four final in Leicester has only just broken off, so tonight's main story is the afternoon. Judd Trump went the distance in Leicester again and lost again, and an 18-year-old from Thailand gave Neil Robertson a proper fright.
Snooker — Champion of Champions, Group Four (Leicester)
Jak Jones 4–3 Judd Trump
Jak Jones has made a habit of beating Judd Trump on big occasions. The Welshman beat him 13–9 in the 2024 World Championship quarter-finals and 6–3 in the British Open semi-finals in September, and this afternoon he won a deciding frame to knock the 2021 champion out at the first hurdle. Trump has reached five Champion of Champions finals besides his win and has been runner-up in three of the last four years.
Deciders keep going wrong for Trump. Before today, TotallySnookered counted only two deciding-frame wins for him in his last 16 deciders on the main tour (Championship League not included). He had lost his previous three, including 4–3 to Martin O'Donnell in Belfast and 6–5 to Fan Zhengyi in Nanjing. Today makes four.
Jones has had a strong season. He won the Championship League in July, beat Mark Selby 10–6 in the British Open final and reached the Northern Ireland Open final.
Neil Robertson 4–2 Panchaya Channoi
Some bookmakers had Robertson at 1/100, and the reigning women's world champion still made him work, as Metro reported. Channoi, known as "Mind", took the opening frame with a long green that Robertson said some top men's players would have turned down. At 3–2 down she led the sixth by 51 points and looked set for a decider. Robertson then cleared with 80 to finish it. His other breaks were 58, 84, 73 and 52.
"She was really aggressive with her shot choice but wasn't reckless," Robertson told ITV. He admitted he "missed a black when I looked like winning 4–1." Stephen Hendry called her long potting "fabulous".
Tonight — still to be decided:
- Group Four final (best of 11): Neil Robertson v Jak Jones, started 19:00 GMT. At the time of writing no frames are complete, so we'll have the result in the morning.
- The winner plays Chris Wakelin in Friday's first semi-final at 19:00 GMT.
Wednesday — Group Three:
- 13:00 GMT — Shaun Murphy v Ronnie O'Sullivan
- Afternoon — Wu Yize v Chang Bingyu
- 19:00 GMT — Group Three final
Pool — Mosconi Cup and the World Nineball Tour
FargoRate comes on board. Per Matchroom, FargoRate will become the World Nineball Tour's first Official Analytics Partner, starting at the Mosconi Cup in Orlando (27–30 November). WNT rankings and player profiles will go into the FargoRate app, and FargoRate numbers will appear in broadcast graphics. Matchroom Multi Sport CEO Emily Frazer said FargoRate "has become part of the language of pool."
Pecelj's road to Orlando. Matchroom's latest Mosconi Cup profile is on Europe's debutant Aleksa Pecelj. In the Arizona Open quarter-finals the Serbian trailed Albert Januarta 9–1 in a race to ten, then won nine racks in a row. He finished runner-up to Denis Grabe there, won the Phoenix Open and reached a US Open semi-final. He also won the Reyes Cup with the Rest of the World team, alongside Fedor Gorst and Shane Van Boening, who will both play for the USA in Orlando.
Ho Chi Minh City breaks off tomorrow. The Universal Open, a $63,000 WNT Silver event with 128 players at Sniper Billiards Club, starts Wednesday. It is double elimination down to the last 64, then straight knockout to a race-to-13 final, and the champion takes $15,000. It streams on WNT TV, and the tour goes straight on to the Universal Bangkok Open (17–21 November).
Amateur snooker — India
The IBSF World Snooker Championships start Thursday at the Yeshwant Club in Indore (12–21 November). According to the Free Press Journal, India has named 22 players: 15 men and seven women. They are led by three-time champion Pankaj Advani and reigning women's champion Anupama Ramachandran. Eight Indian men go straight into Stage 2. Former world 6-red champions Laxman Rawat and Kamal Chawla are among the seven who start in Stage 1 qualifying.
Coming up from Reggie: the Robertson v Jones result and Group Three from Leicester, plus the first day in Ho Chi Minh City.
Feature image: “Jak Jones 2026 (1)” by Andrej146, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC0.
