2019 World Cup (snooker)

The 2019 Beverly World Cup was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 24 to 30 June 2019 at the Wuxi City Sports Park Stadium in Wuxi, China. Hosted by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), it was the first event of the 2019/2020 season and the 16th edition of the World Cup.

2019 World Cup

Tournament information
Dates	24–30 June 2019
Venue	Wuxi City Sports Park Stadium
City	Wuxi
Country	China
Organisation(s)	WPBSA
Format	Non-ranking team event
Total prize fund	$800,000
Winner's share	$200,000
Highest break	China Liang Wenbo (138)
Final
Champion	Scotland John Higgins Stephen Maguire
Runner-up	China B Zhou Yuelong Liang Wenbo
Score	4–0
← 2017 2021 →

The Chinese team of Liang Wenbo and Ding Junhui were the defending champions, having won the 2017 event defeating the English team of Barry Hawkins and Judd Trump 4–3 in the final. Ding and Liang were on different teams for the event, due to China having two sides as hosts. The China B team of Liang and Zhou Yuelong reached the final of the event, where they met the Scotland team of John Higgins and Stephen Maguire. Higgins and Maguire won the event winning the final 4–0. This was the first win in the World Cup for Scotland since the 1996 World Cup. Liang also had the highest break of the event, a 138 in the group stage match against Switzerland.

Tournament overview

Format

The 2019 World Cup was a professional snooker tournament for national pairs. The defending champions were the Chinese team of Liang Wenbo and Ding Junhui.[1] The tournament used the same format as that used in 2017 World Cup. The tournament consisted of 24 national teams, with two players competing for each side.[2] The World cup was split into a group stage, and a knockout stage.[3] The 24 teams were split into four groups of six teams.[4] The group stages consisted of matches played as best-of-five-frames with four frames of singles, and a frame of doubles.[4] The top two teams from each group advanced to the Knockout Stages, the order being determined by total frames won.[4] If there is a tie in either of the first two places the following rules determine the positions:[4]

• If two teams are equal on frames won, the winner of the match between the two teams will be ranked higher.
• If three or more teams are tied, a sudden-death blue ball shoot-out will be played.
• Teams tied for position 3 to 6 would remain tied and share the prize money for those positions.

During knockout stage, matches were played as best-of-seven-frames.[2] The knockout matches were scheduled as four singles matches and two doubles matches with the final frame being a singles match, with participants nominated by each team.[4]

Prize fund

The total prize fund for the event totalled $800,000, with the winning team receiving $200,000.[5]

• Winner: $200,000
• Runner-Up: $100,000
• Semi-final: $60,000
• Quarter-final: $40,000
• Third in group: $22,500
• Fourth in group: $15,000
• Fifth in group: $10,000
• Sixth in group: $7,500
• Total: $800,000

Participants

The tournament was made up of 24 pairs of players representing individual nations.[6] China, who had won the event in both the last three events, in 2017 and 2015 and 2011 were allocated two places due to being hosts.[6][7] Below is the list of teams and players participating.[2]

Seed	Nation	Player 1	Player 2
1	China A	Ding Junhui	Yan Bingtao
2	Wales	Mark Williams	Ryan Day
3	Scotland	John Higgins	Stephen Maguire
4	Northern Ireland	Mark Allen	Jordan Brown
5	England	Kyren Wilson	Jack Lisowski
6	Belgium	Luca Brecel	Ben Mertens
7	China B	Zhou Yuelong	Liang Wenbo
8	Thailand	Thepchaiya Un-Nooh	Noppon Saengkham
9	Iran	Hossein Vafaei	Soheil Vahedi
10	Cyprus	Michael Georgiou	Antonis Poullos
11	Norway	Kurt Maflin	Christopher Watts
12	Ireland	Ken Doherty	Fergal O'Brien
13	Malaysia	Thor Chuan Leong	Moh Keen Hoo
14	Poland	Adam Stefanow	Kacper Filipiak
15	Hong Kong	Andy Lee	Cheung Ka Wai
16	Germany	Simon Lichtenberg	Lukas Kleckers
17	Israel	Eden Sharav	Shachar Ruberg
18	Australia	Steve Mifsud	Ryan Thomerson
19	Saudi Arabia	Omar Alajlani	Ahmed Aseeri
20	Switzerland	Alexander Ursenbacher	Luis Vetter
21	Malta	Alex Borg	Brian Cini
22	India	Himanshu Dinesh Jain	Lucky Vatnani
23	Austria	Andreas Ploner	Florian Nüßle
24	United Arab Emirates	Mohammed Shehab	Mohammed Al Joaker

Results

The following is the results from the event. Teams listed in bold denote match winners.[8]

Group A

Date	Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2
24 June 2019	China A	4–1	Germany		Thailand	2–3	Norway		Poland	2–3	Austria
25 June 2019	China A	4–1	Norway		Thailand	3–2	Austria		Poland	3–2	Germany
26 June 2019	China A	4–1	Austria		Thailand	3–2	Poland		Norway	2–3	Germany
27 June 2019	China A	5–0	Poland		Thailand	4–1	Germany		Austria	1–4	Norway
28 June 2019	China A	2–3	Thailand		Poland	4–1	Norway		Austria	3–2	Germany

Place	Seed	Team	Games	Frames	Frames won	Frames lost	Difference	Points
1	1	China A	5	25	19	6	+13	19
2	8	Thailand	5	25	15	10	+5	15
3	11	Norway	5	25	11	14	−3	11
	14	Poland	5	25	11	14	−3	11
5	23	Austria	5	25	10	15	−5	10
6	16	Germany	5	25	9	16	−7	9

Group B

Date	Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2
24 June 2019	Northern Ireland	4–1	Saudi Arabia		England	3–2	Hong Kong		Iran	3–2	Ireland
25 June 2019	Northern Ireland	3–2	Hong Kong		England	3–2	Ireland		Iran	2–3	Saudi Arabia
26 June 2019	Northern Ireland	1–4	Ireland		England	3–2	Iran		Hong Kong	4–1	Saudi Arabia
27 June 2019	Northern Ireland	1–4	Iran		England	5–0	Saudi Arabia		Ireland	1–4	Hong Kong
28 June 2019	Northern Ireland	2–3	England		Iran	2–3	Hong Kong		Ireland	3–2	Saudi Arabia

Place	Seed	Team	Games	Frames	Frames won	Frames lost	Difference	Points
1	5	England	5	25	17	8	+9	17
2	15	Hong Kong	5	25	15	10	+5	15
3	9	Iran	5	25	13	12	+1	13
4	12	Ireland	5	25	12	13	−1	12
5	4	Northern Ireland	5	25	11	14	−3	11
6	19	Saudi Arabia	5	25	7	18	−11	7

Group C

Date	Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2
24 June 2019	Scotland	4–1	Cyprus		Belgium	4–1	United Arab Emirates		Malaysia	1–4	Israel
25 June 2019	Scotland	4–1	United Arab Emirates		Belgium	4–1	Israel		Malaysia	3–2	Cyprus
26 June 2019	Scotland	5–0	Israel		Belgium	4–1	Malaysia		United Arab Emirates	3–2	Cyprus
27 June 2019	Scotland	4–1	Malaysia		Belgium	4–1	Cyprus		Israel	4–1	United Arab Emirates
28 June 2019	Scotland	2–3	Belgium		Malaysia	2–3	United Arab Emirates		Israel	2–3	Cyprus

Place	Seed	Team	Games	Frames	Frames won	Frames lost	Difference	Points
1	6	Belgium	5	25	19	6	+13	19
2	3	Scotland	5	25	19	6	+13	19
3	17	Israel	5	25	11	14	−3	11
4	10	Cyprus	5	25	9	17	−8	9
	24	United Arab Emirates	5	25	9	17	−8	9
6	13	Malaysia	5	25	8	18	−10	8

Group D

Date	Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2
24 June 2019	Wales	4–1	India		China B	5–0	Australia		Switzerland	3–2	Malta
25 June 2019	Wales	4–1	Australia		China B	3–2	Malta		Switzerland	3–2	India
26 June 2019	Wales	4–1	Malta		China B	5–0	Switzerland		Australia	2–3	India
27 June 2019	Wales	5–0	Switzerland		China B	5–0	India		Malta	3–2	Australia
28 June 2019	Wales	4–1	China B		Switzerland	2–3	Australia		Malta	1–4	India

Place	Seed	Team	Games	Frames	Frames won	Frames lost	Difference	Points
1	2	Wales	5	25	21	4	+17	21
2	7	China B	5	25	19	6	+13	19
3	22	India	5	25	10	15	−6	10
4	21	Malta	5	25	9	15	−6	9
5	20	Switzerland	5	25	8	17	−9	8
	18	Australia	5	25	8	17	−9	8

Knockout stage

Quarter-finals Best of 7 frames (29 June 2019)

Semi-finals Best of 7 frames (30 June 2019)

Final Best of 7 frames (30 June 2019)

A1

China A (1)

4

B2

Hong Kong (15)

0

A1

China A (1)

1

C2

Scotland (3)

4

D1

Wales (2)

3

C2

Scotland (3)

4

C2

Scotland (3)

4

D2

China B (7)

0

B1

England (5)

4

A2

Thailand (8)

3

B1

England (5)

3

D2

China B (7)

4

C1

Belgium (6)

2

D2

China B (7)

4

Final

Final: Best of 7 frames. Referee: Jan Scheers Wuxi City Sports Park Stadium, Wuxi, China, 30 June 2019.
John Higgins Stephen Maguire  Scotland (3)	4–0	Zhou Yuelong Liang Wenbo  China B (7)
58–38, 71–0, 60–45, 55–33
45	Highest break	45
0	Century breaks	0
0	50+ breaks	0

Century breaks

There were a total of 17 century breaks made in the tournament. The highest break was made by China B's Liang Wenbo in the third frame of the group stage match against Switzerland. Below is a list of centuries made during the tournament, along with the team they were representing.[9]

• China B – 138 Liang Wenbo
• Wales – 134 Ryan Day; 127, 110, 101 Mark Williams
• Thailand – 133, 115 Noppon Saengkham
• China A – 123 Yan Bingtao; 104, 103 Ding Junhui
• Scotland – 117 Stephen Maguire
• Northern Ireland – 116, 113 Mark Allen
• Malta – 112 Brian Cini
• Iran – 105 Hossein Vafaei
• England – 104 Jack Lisowski
• Hong Kong – 104 Cheung Ka Wai

References

1. "2019 World Cup". Snooker.org. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
2. "World Cup Team Players Confirmed - World Snooker". World Snooker. 2019-06-17. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
3. "World cup 2019 provisional format" (PDF). worldsnooker.com. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
4. "World Cup 2019 - Competition Format" (PDF). worldsnooker.com. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
5. "World Cup Prize Money - World Snooker". World Snooker. 2019-06-13. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
6. "Snooker World Cup Draw and Format - World Snooker". World Snooker. 2019-06-11. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
7. "Beverly World Cup - World Snooker". World Snooker. Retrieved 21 December 2019.
8. Årdalen, Hermund. "Beverly World Cup (2019) - snooker.org". snooker.org (in Norwegian). Retrieved 21 December 2019.
9. "Centuries | World Snooker Live Scores". livescores.worldsnookerdata.com. Retrieved 21 December 2019.

External links