The 2024 "Huading Nylon" Snooker World Open ended in Yushan, Jiangxi Province on the evening of 24th. The defending champion and the season’s top ranked Rump defeated China’s "first brother" Ding Junhui 10-4 in the final and won the fifth ranking championship this season.
The World Open is one of the world’s oldest professional snooker rankings except the World Championships. It settled in Yushan, Jiangxi Province in 2016, and this time it returned after a lapse of five years.
This competition attracted seven-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, the world’s number one, 2019 world champion and defending champion Te Rump, 2023 world champion Luca Brecel, four-time world champion mark selby and other star players to participate, and 19 China players, including Ding Junhui and Zhang Anda, ranked in the TOP16, played at home.
During the seven-day competition, all the contestants went all out to achieve many breakthroughs. England’s Zach Schulti scored his first shot of 147 on the first day of the tournament, which also rewrote the 12-year history of this tournament without a perfect score of 147. Welsh "post-00" star Jackson Pagerik reached the semi-finals as the world champion, creating the best ranking result in his career.
The number of spectators and communication influence of this World Open far exceeds that of previous ones. According to incomplete statistics, the number of people watching the game and the highest number of people watching the game in a single game have set a new record for professional snooker events in the world this season, and the total box office far exceeds the previous one (2019). The relevant content of the event has been on the hot search many times, setting off a new wave of snooker craze.
Simon brownell, CEO of World Snooker Co., Ltd. said that the World Open has raised the sport of snooker to a new height. Many stars lamented the popularity of snooker in China and thought that the billiards atmosphere in Yushan was very good.
Today, Yushan, Jiangxi has become a veritable "Billiards Capital of China and Billiards City of the World". Before the World Open, the World Billiards Museum and the World Billiards Hall of Fame, which were built after ten years, were officially unveiled, and seven outstanding figures, including Ding Junhui and O ‘Sullivan, became the first celebrities in the Hall of Fame.
After visiting the World Billiards Museum, O ‘Sullivan said: "I am very happy to learn the history of billiards in the World Billiards Museum. I am very grateful to Yushan and Xingpai for bringing such amazing facilities. All snooker fans in the world should come here to have a look."
The rooting of billiards in Yushan has profoundly changed billiards in China and the world, and also greatly promoted the all-round development of tourism, catering, service and other industries in Yushan, making Yushan County, the "East Gate" of Jiangxi, look brand-new.
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