Snooker World Cup

The World Cup is running in Wuxi, and it's been such a successful event at all.

Like I said here in my Snooker World Cup Preview, it was going to be something the Sport has never seen, because for the first time Snooker has an event where every country can play, and we can really call the World Cup an International Event.

The structure of the event, the arena, the buzz around, the atmosphere, everything have been going perfectly. The crowd in China is something that could be better, for a Snooker fanatic country which has a +1 Billion population, the arenas should be packed as it is in Germany and many other European countries, but anyway we can still hear the claps there and it has been good for the "inaugural" year, hopefully better in the weekend.

At the table, the lesser-known players and low expected teams have been proving that Snooker has really growth around the World and that they really know what they're doing.

There have been many shocks, Qatar - that actually don't have any professional on their team and the former professional Ahmed Saif failed to win more than one match in two years - got two points off Australia commanded by Neil Robertson. By the way, Neil Robertson's partner - Vinnie Calabrese - has been playing much less of what people expected from him, as Neil couldn't save Australia again in their 2-3 loss against Pakistan, one of the biggest shocks so far.

Another big shock was the Thailand of Poomjaeng & Un-Nooh beating the hot favorite England. Of course, everyone who follows Snooker during the whole season knows the potential of the Thai team, but to beat the last two World Champions - Stuart Bingham and Mark Selby - wasn't on the route. However England hasn't really got the right way so far, they faced China B and needed the last frame to beat them 3-2 and they're now in dangerous situation at the 5th position in the Group D, needing to be at least second to reach to the Quarter Finals.

China B has been impressing a lot, 15 years-old Yan Bingtao and 17 years-old Zhou Yuelong got an amazing result against Northern Ireland, winning the match 4-1. For me, it hasn't been a big surprise, as I said in the Preview's post, I've watched Yan Bingtao (watch his 134 Break) in Asian Tour Events and Chinese Ranking Events as a WildCard and the way he plays impresses because he doesn't seem to suffer with any kind of pressure, he has an all-round game and always plays right shot in right time.

Igor Figueiredo

But the biggest shock of the tournament so far was highlighted by my beloved Brazil, the team of Igor Figueiredo and Ítaro Santos scored an unbelievable victory against Scotland (by the way the team I picked as winner in my preview) with a frame to spare. After split away a 2-0 lead against Belgium, Santos interrupted Maguire's smiles with a 105 Break and then the South Americans kept in control of the match, winning the doubles' and another win over Maguire, this time by Figueiredo with a 55 Break. Despite Higgins won the last frame against Santos, Brazil had already secured the match, the best result of Brazilian's small history in Snooker and one of the biggest shocks in the big Snooker's history.

See Group Tables

See Match Times

Today in Wuxi, the nations are playing the 3rd out of the 5 Group's matches which will end on
Friday, with Quarter-Finals taking place on Saturday and Semi-Finals/Final taking place on Sunday.

It's difficult for me to post here in the blog because the time I have is while the matches are going on - late night and early morning here in Brazil -, but Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook is not missing on anything, like the page to make sure you are up to date with everything going on in China for the World Cup.