CHANGE OF GUARD IN SNOOKER?

Just a week ago 21 years-old Fan Zhengyi beat Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final of the European Masters. Fan joins a few other young players that have done really well in the last couple years - to name a few, Yan Bingtao (22), Zhao Xintong (24) and Luca Brecel (26).

Although O'Sullivan, who's 46 now, was World Champion a couple years ago and is set to get back to the top of the World Ranking in a few weeks, the recent outbreak of youngsters have fed a narrative of a change of guard in snooker. That is actually quite exciting, since we've seen the same faces at the top for so long: reigning world champion and world number one Mark Selby is 38, recent Masters champion Neil Robertson is 40, and Mark Williams and John Higgins - both tournament winners this season - are 46 as well. Are we finally seeing players that will challenge their long-lasting reign breaking through?

Well, snooker is a funny old sport. Judd Trump, a player that we've expected to take the game to another level but so far at 32 hasn't managed to shake off his older rivals, just lost the Welsh Open final to 47 years-old Joe Perry.

In Perry's 30-years long career, it's only his second ranking title, but it's as good as a first since the one he'd won (PTC Grand Finals) consisted in best of 7 matches all the way through and wasn't in UK soil.

It brings us back to the "change of guard" thing. Although there's a storm of young players coming through strong, we still have players in their late 40's getting the best results of their entire career. 

It looks like there's a range of 30 years between 20 and 50 where everyone is capable of playing their best snooker, and with 30 events a year if you can hit form for a few weeks there's a good chance to land a trophy.

It's really exciting times indeed, and I can't wait to find out how it'll pan out at the Crucible's long format. Some of the tournament winners we've had this season are out of the top 16, so it means that there's still some qualifying matches to get trough first and the tour has never been so strong. Do you believe, though, that any of these young talents coming through will take snooker to the next level?

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