2015/16 season Review

Last year I did Season review and preview and they both remain as two of the Top 5 all time most viewd posts of the Blog, so of course I'm doing the same this year. Here, I'll look back on the highlights of the season gone.

Different Champions

Rory McLeod posing with the Ruhr Open trophy

Snooker is in a very good place, every event has a good space on TV and all the tournaments are very prestigious. You never know when your form will arrive, it's something that simply come and goes and you don't have a lot of control about it. Anyway they prepare themselves to be potentially able to bring the best out of their game during the second half of the season, where the biggest tournaments are played.

However with the standard nowadays being so high, any title is a big achievement and we've had so many different tournament winners and runner-up`s. The most remarkable one in my opinion was Rory McLeod winning the Ruhr Open in Germany, beating Tian Pengfei in the Final. 

Kyren Wilson won the Shanghai Masters winning 9 matches, the last 3 against Ding Junhui, Mark Allen and Judd Trump. He also made the Semis of the Champion of Champions and the German Masters, finishing the season in good style making the Quarter-Finals at the Crucible. The 24 year-old will start next season inside the Top 16.

Robertson Domination

Robertson won the UK Championship for a second time

As I've said before, the players prepare themselves to bring the best out of them during the second half of the season, so when it comes you expect the better players to start winning. And it happened as 2010 World Champion Neil Robertson won the Champion of Champions and the UK Championship back-to-back in November/December. If you watch his 1st match at the Champion of Champions and his last match at the UK Championship you'll find it incredible how much he improved throughout these two tournaments. By the way his 147 Break against Liang Wenbo in the Final of the UK Championship was the 1st ever Maximum Break compiled in the Final of a Triple Crown event.

Neil Robertson had a good Masters, lost in the Quarter-Finals to Judd Trump but that was one of the matches where you wish there was no loser, together they made 6 Century Breaks, a record for a Best of 11 match. Robertson also made the Final of the Welsh Open only losing to Ronnie O`Sullivan in the Final. But unfortunately he couldn't end the season very well, with 1st Round defeats in the World Grand Prix and at the Crucible.

Bingham Struggles 

It wasn't the season Stuart Bingham was hoping for as World Champion, he didn't seem to take the weight over his shoulders very well, never won a tournament and made only one Final, at the World Grand Prix despite the fact he didn't play very well there either. He lost in the 1st Round of the World Championship but I can't blame him, he's not the first World Champion to fall in Round 1 and I don't think any World Champion - maybe apart from Robertson in 2011 - had such a tough draw in the 1st Round. He played Ali Carter and was defeated 10-9. 

I'm sure Bingham will comeback to winning ways, he just needs one title under his belt to recover self belief and he'll finally play as a World Champion then. The problem is that he's already 39 years-old now and he'd love this title to come as early as possible to enjoy it as much as he can before the end of his career, that is not around the corner yet but is closer than the beginning I feel.

Rocket Comes Back

O`Sullivan won the Masters for a Record-equalling 6th time

Ronnie O`Sullivan missed the 1st eight months of the season, but surprisingly decided to comeback just before christmas for the German Masters Qualifiers. But a defeat to Stuart Carrington didn't let his fans full of hope for the rest of the season. But things began to change when he entered the Championship League Group 1 just before the Masters and won the Group undefeated. It boosted his confidence and despite he doesn't agree, he played superbly well at the Masters to win his 6th title, beating Barry Hawkins 10-1 in the Final. He then went on to win the Welsh Open and make the Final of the Championship League, at one point he won 24 consecutive matches. Anyway just like Neil Robertson, O`Sullivan didn't finish his season very well, with a 1st Round defeat at the World Grand Prix and Last 16 defeat at the Crucible.

Chinese Success

Ding Junhui, World Number One for a week in 2014, winner of 11 Ranking Titles and The Masters, might have dropped out of the Top 16 and had to play the Qualifiers for the World Championship this year, but his run from the Qualifiers to the Final isn't the only thing that makes me think it was the best year for China in Snooker.
They started the season with 15 year-old Yan Bingtao winning the World Cup alongside 17 year-old Zhou Yuelong. They played for China's "B" team and it was a 2nd World Cup victory for China, winners in 2011 with Liang Wenbo and Ding Junhui.
Ding Junhui then won a small tournament in China before Liang Wenbo ran to the Final of the UK Championship, the second Chinese - after Ding - to contest the Final of a Triple Crown event. Liang even had a spell in the Top 16 and played The Masters, it was the first time we had 2 Chinese players featuring in The Masters' draw.
It was the first time since 2007 that China didn't have a seeded player at the Crucible, however 3 players made it through the Qualifiers, Liang Wenbo, Zhang Anda and of course Ding Junhui. Fair to say as well that Marco Fu from Hong Kong made the Semi-Finals and also won the Gibraltar Open in December.


Thepchaiya Un-Noooooh

How amazing is it to make a 147 Maximum Break in Snooker? Something that very few players achieved and even less can say they did it for more than once. I'm sure many Snooker fans after telling someone the most somebody made (13 - Ronnie O`Sullivan) had a reaction like: "Only?!".
Yeah, it's special, not just for the big amount of money you earn for it, but the feeling to enter a very elite group of great players who can say they did so.
But the fact you're playing Neil Robertson, at the UK Championship, live on the BBC and should earn £44k to make a maximum break makes it slightly more special. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh surely have earned an awful lot of fans due to his playing style, attacking and possibly the fastest player on the circuit, but against Neil he potted 15 reds, 15 blacks, cleared the colors up to the pink and then... missed the black!
As if it wasn't devastating enough, he managed to the same, missing the black for a maximum. This time it was against Anthony McGill in the Qualifier of the World Championship, he was live on YouTube and it could've earned him £8,5k plus the £1k bonus for the highest break prize, which he won anyway with a 144.
Not just the disappointment of missing the black, Un-Nooh will be even more frustrated because it's something the reigning 6 Red World Champion never achieved and also were crucial in my opinion for him losing both of these matches, the latter one costing him a place at the Crucible for a debut.
Missing it for the 1st time was already incredible, but twice in a season makes me think it'll be something people will forever remember when talking about him, hopefully he makes a Maximum soon to take this weight out of his shoulders, no words can describe how annoying that must be.

Selby wins the World Championship

Mark Selby beat Ding Junhui 18-14 in the Final of the World Championship this year to retain the title he won two years ago. Neither of the Finalists had two good seasons before this World Championship, both won titles but not something really big. Selby won the German Masters in 2015 and was still number one in the World, but it was a very unexpected result and he will be the first to admit he wasn't at his best at the Crucible this year. Anyway his safety play and his "never give in" attitude were crucial for him to win the title. In general, the World Championship had a very high standard, equalling the Century Breaks record of 86, established last year. Ding Junhui made 15 Centuries in the event, that's only below Stephen Hendry's 16 in 2002 and better than Ronnie O`Sullivan's 13, which he managed to produce a few times.
Mark Selby also joins the elite club of multiple title winners at the Crucible, alongside Ronnie O`Sullivan (x5), John Higgins (x4), Mark Williams (x2), Stephen Hendry (x7) and Steve Davis (x6).
I think Selby this time will play a lot better carrying the "World Champion" mantle than he did a couple of years ago, but this is something I'll talk more in my 2016/17 Season Preview.


Snooker Global Advance

Exhibition Show in Romania

Barry Hearn (World Snooker Chairman), Jason Ferguson (World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association Chairman) and the team behind them got to be congratulated on the job they're making in Snooker. Not that long ago,  in 2010, Snooker was still big in the UK because you can't kill tradition, but it was declining and without any ambition to expand world widely. If I told someone Snooker was going to be this big 5 or 6 years on, even if I said 10, with events happening very nearly every week of the year with big audiences and TV exposure, people would laugh at me. At the beginning I didn't agree with most of Barry Hearn's decisions, but now I can hardly find one I can argue against. Snooker is just as big as ever, the interest in UK is growing again and the sport is getting bigger all around the World, in China it's a mania, and in Romania some of the exhibitions there you can't believe how many people attend, it's great to know we'll have a full Ranking Event there next season, not just there but in several other countries.
The World Championship reached more than 350 Million people this year, and Barry Hearn said in his press conference at the Crucible that Snooker reached 1,5 Billion people throughout the past season. It wasn't the only thing he had to say, he also had some exciting news about the tour and some fantastic contracts which I'll be talking more about in the following post.



I'll comeback in a few days with the 2016/17 season Preview talking about new tournaments introduced to the calendar, new contracts for further events, and also predict what we can expect from Mark Selby as reigning Champion of the World, keep in touch.
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