Morning all. Reggie here with the Monday paper. The Belfast final didn't really make it to a second session, Doha has started catching out the big names, and there's a busy day ahead in Kuala Lumpur and Goyang. Let's go.
Belfast: three frames, 21 points against, job doneJak Jones needed something special after the interval. He didn't get anywhere near it. Kyren Wilson won the first three frames of the evening session to beat Jones 9–2 at the Waterfront Hall. He's lifted the Alex Higgins Trophy, and it came at the expense of the man he beat in the 2024 Crucible final.
How the evening went
- Wilson nicked a scrappy ninth frame and then went 8–2 up.
- Jones gave himself a chance in frame 11 with a superb long red, but a mistake let Wilson back in and he closed it out with a 75.
- Per TNT Sports' live coverage, Jones scored just 21 points in the whole evening session.
The final in numbers
- Centuries: Wilson made 101, 135 and 105 (all in the afternoon) and Jones made 130.
- Wilson's other big breaks were 60, 67 and 75, and Jones had a 72.
- Prize money: £100,000 to Wilson and £45,000 to Jones.
- Records: it's Wilson's 11th ranking title, which takes him past Jimmy White on the all-time list. It's also his first ranking win since the 2025 Players Championship.
- Rankings: TNT Sports report Wilson moves up to No. 8 in the world and Jones climbs to No. 18.
What he said
Wilson told BBC Sport NI he was "buzzing". He also admitted that being 6–2 up made the evening harder to prepare for: "the little demon in the back of your head is saying, 'no, don't think you've won, you could lose it'". He spoke about the trophy too: "it has got an absolute legend of our sport's name on it, so I am very grateful that I can take this trophy home for a second time."
My take: he's the reigning Masters champion, but Wilson's ranking-event form since the spring had been patchy at best. This was a proper statement. He made three centuries in the afternoon, and going by TNT's timings he needed less than an hour of the evening session. Jones had played Mark Williams until around midnight in the semi. He wasn't sharp, but he does leave Belfast with a big rankings jump.
Next on the WST calendar: there's a short break, and then the International Championship in Nanjing starts on Friday 30 October and runs to 7 November.
Doha 10-ball World Cup: the world No. 1 is on one lifeThe $450,000 Qatar 10-Ball World Cup is double elimination over races to 9 until the field is down to 64. Since our last update a few big names have dropped into the one-loss side.
Winners' qualification results (per the event's live scoring)
- Aivhan Maluto 9–6 Wojciech Szewczyk: the reigning two-time world 10-ball champion and world No. 1 now has to win through the losers' bracket.
- Mohammed Baabad 9–7 Jayson Shaw: the Scot is also on one life.
- Jonas Magpantay 9–5 Jan Van Lierop: the defending champion is safely into the last 64.
- Szymon Kural 9–3 Jundel Mazon: last year's runner-up is through as well.
- Mario He 9–7 Abdullah Alenezi, John Morra 9–6 Marco Teutscher and Ameer Ali 9–1 Darryl Chia.
- Both Kacis won hill-hill: Kledio Kaci 9–8 Hubert Łopotko and Eklent Kaci 9–8 Hsu Jui-an.
- Ruslan Chinakhov 9–6 Mazen Berjaoui. That follows his opening-round upset of No. 15 seed Wiktor Zieliński.
Elsewhere in round one, David Alcaide beat Aleksa Pecelj 9–7, so Europe's new Mosconi Cup debutant is also on one life. No. 16 seed Naoyuki Oi went down 9–8 to Sanjin Pehlivanović, but both Oi and Zieliński then won their first losers' matches.
Today's schedule (UK times, per the live-scoring draw)
- 08:00: the rest of the winners' qualification round. The headline match is Fedor Gorst v Jefrey Roda, and you've also got Carlo Biado v Hsieh Chia-chen, Francisco Sánchez Ruiz v Habib El Hussein, Alex Pagulayan v Mahmoud Charif, David Alcaide v Bashar Hussain, and Niels Feijen v Mustafa Alnar, the man who beat Filler.
- 10:30: losers' round one, where a second defeat means you're out. Joshua Filler v Mohammed Al Balushi is the one to watch. Thorsten Hohmann v Meshaal Turki, Aleksa Pecelj v Abdulaziz Al Amoudi and Ralf Souquet v Abdelrahman Salama Nasr are also on.
- 13:00 and 15:30: the losers' qualification matches, which decide the last few places in the last 64. Szewczyk and Shaw are both in the 15:30 batch.
- The last 64 (races to 11, single elimination) starts on Tuesday at 08:00.
Kuala Lumpur: the women's last 16 is done and the quarters are under wayThe Niche Cues Women's Open (World Women's Snooker ranking event) finished its last 16 overnight. The results, per snooker.org:
- Ng On-yee 3–0 Shruthi L. Shruthi only won her third straight women's world billiards title last week, but she couldn't take a frame here.
- Reanne Evans 3–1 Lau Yuk Fan
- Bai Yulu 3–1 Natcharin Sornprasert. Bai is the defending champion and top seed.
- Panchaya Channoi 3–1 Liu Ziling
- So Man Yan 3–1 Baipat Siripaporn
- Anupama Ramachandran 3–1 Narucha Phoemphul. The Indian No. 7 seed knocks out the No. 6 seed.
- Narantuya Bayarsaikhan 3–2 Wang Ruotong
- Mink Nutcharut v Phakwalan Kongkaew went to a decider at 2–2. I couldn't confirm the result before writing.
Goyang: Kim Bo-mi's done, now it's the men's turnThe LPBA crown went to Kim Bo-mi yesterday. Today the men's PBA event at the Kintex PBA Stadium gets its champion. The semi-finals are both Korea against Spain:
- Lee Sang-dae v David Martínez started at 03:30 UK time. Lee is in his first PBA semi for more than three years, and Martínez is in his second semi in a row. I couldn't confirm a result at the time of writing.
- Cho Geon-hwi v Antonio Montes starts at 06:30 UK time.
- The final is at 12:00 UK time and the winner gets ₩100 million.
Quick shots- Mosconi Cup watch: Europe's three automatic places are Sánchez Ruiz, Filler and Pecelj. The USA's are Van Boening and Styer, plus the spot Hohmann turned down. Both sides still have wildcards to name, so this week's Doha results are worth watching from that angle.
- Snooker, after Belfast: Jones has already won two titles this season and was going for a third last night. Nanjing is his next chance. For Wilson, the question is whether this form travels to China.
Talking point: Wilson is now 11 ranking titles in and holds the Masters. Is he the most underrated player of his generation, or did Jones simply not turn up for the final? Let me know below.
Back at midday with the PBA final build-up, the KL semi line-up and how Filler got on.
— Reggie Rutherford
Sources: BBC Sport NI, TNT Sports live blog, Totally Snookered, Belfast Telegraph, WST; Qatar Billiard Sports Federation live scoring (via Rack 9) and Absolute Pool; snooker.org; Billiards & Sports, MK Billiards; WPBSA.
Feature image: “Kyren Wilson Masters 2026 3” by BennyOnTheLoose, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
