WPBSA Q Tour Europe – The Race To The Play-Offs | Event 3 Update
The race for both a place on the World Snooker Tour (WST) and spots at the WPBSA Q Tour Global Play-Offs is hotting up following the conclusion of the third Q Tour Europe event in Golem, Albania last weekend.
Three of the seven events in the Q Tour Europe series have now taken place in Stockholm, Vienna and Golem with further tournaments to be staged in Leeds, Sofia, Mons and Walsall before the end of the season.
The cueist who finishes in top spot on the ranking list following the conclusion of the seventh and final event will earn an automatic two-year WST tour card for the 2026/27 and 2027/28 campaigns.
A minimum of 16 further places will be on offer at the Global Play-Offs for players from the Europe series where they will be joined by competitors from the Americas, Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions to contest three further tour cards.
Winners of each Q Tour Europe event are guaranteed a spot in the Global Play-Offs meaning that Hammad Miah, Peter Lines and Simon Blackwell have already secured their places.
Champions Lead The Race
Peter Lines, who lifted the event two title in Vienna last month, currently sits in top spot after three events thanks to a consistent campaign so far which has seen the 55-year-old former professional reach a semi-final and a last 16 stage.
Unsurprisingly, it is his two fellow title holders that make up the top three with Stockholm champion Hammad Miah closely followed by Simon Blackwell, who overcame Mark Joyce in a final frame decider to become the third different winner of the campaign in Golem last weekend.
The Chasing Pack
Despite not yet reaching a final of a Q Tour event, 19-year-old Oliver Sykes is the highest ranked non-event winner having impressively reached the final day of all three events so far – recording a season-best semi-final finish last weekend in Golem.
Patrick Whelan, Peter Devlin and Mark Joyce sit between fifth and seventh as a result of each reaching a Q Tour title match during an unpredictable campaign that has already seen six different finalists.
The remainder of the top ten is made up of Welsh former professional Jamie Clarke and George Pragnell, who have both reached the final day of two events, and 25-year-old Alfie Davies – who has made at least the last 16 stage of each event so far.
The Top 17
The race to finish in the all-important top 17 places is impossible to call at this stage with the finest of margins separating 17th-placed Sean O’Sullivan and the chasing pack.
Former professionals Ryan Thomerson, Stuart Carrington, Craig Steadman and Barry Pinches are joined by 16-year-old Michael Larkov, who impressively reached the semi-finals in Stockholm, in making up the top 15 of latest ranking list.
Riley Parsons and O’Sullivan currently hold the last remaining play-off spots but are closely followed by Luke Pinches, Robert Read, Ashley Carty and Alex Millington who all sit just 505 points behind the all-important 17th position.
WPBSA Q Tour Europe continues later this month with Event 4 at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds, England. Entry for the event is open now via WPBSA SnookerScores and will close on Wednesday 15 October at 12pm BST.
