Youth of Sheffield Day to be Staged During 2025 Seniors Snooker World Championship
World Seniors Snooker (WSS) is pleased to announce that the first ‘Youth of Sheffield Day’ will be staged during the 2025 Seniors Snooker World Championship.
The new initiative will see WSS engage with multiple local youth groups to champion the young people of the steel city and takes place on semi-final Saturday, the 10th May, from the iconic Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
More than 50 young snooker players from the local Stephen Harrison Snooker Academy will be invited to showcase their skills on the morning before being invited to watch the semi-final action unfold on snooker’s most famous stage.
Competitions will also be staged by the academy with the winner set to be presented with their prize at the Crucible Theatre by a legend of the sport.
As well as this collaboration, ‘Youth of Sheffield Day’ will also see Tudor Square full of groups celebrating the city’s youth activities and a partnership with the local universities which will see graduates working alongside WSS on all aspects of the marketing, promotion and TV production of the event.
Stephen Harrison, who runs the academy, said: “We are delighted to be involved in the 2025 World Seniors Championships. The academy has been providing services for the Sheffield community for over 17 years – growing grassroots snooker within our region and around the UK. We currently provide weekly professional snooker coaching and competitions for over 200 of our disabled members.
“It is great to be involved in the Youth of Sheffield Day – the children are so excited and cannot wait to attend. I’d like to say a big thank you to Jason Francis and Mike Dunn at World Seniors Snooker for making our junior members dreams come true by getting to visit the Crucible Theatre and feel the intensity of watching a live match at the theatre of dreams.”
Mike Dunn, World Seniors Snooker Director, said: “Being able to use the great work Stephen is doing within the city to celebrate the Youth of Sheffield at the World Seniors Championship is brilliant. Snooker is synonymous with the city and helping to develop young talent is so important. I know as a player what it means to play at the Crucible Theatre and I know it will be amazing for these children to watch snooker live here for the first time.”
‘Youth of Sheffield Day’ follows on from the previous success of ‘Seniors of Sheffield Day’, which is back for the third time on Friday 9th May, and will once again see local members of the aging population invited to meet some snooker legends and watch the matches live.
In addition, a ‘Business of Sheffield Day’ will also be staged during the Championship to champion local business,. This will be staged on Thursday 8th with a business breakfast with 1985 World Snooker Champion Dennis Taylor.
To find out more about how your child can get involved in Youth Day please contact the Stephen Harrison Academy at info@stephenharrisonacademy.com
The snooker community, and the Egyptian snooker community in particular, is in mourning. Yesterday we lost Wael Talaat. Wael was a very, very good player and extremely respected in his country Egypt. He certainly inspired many young Egyptian apiring snooker player.
He was briefly professional in 1998 but he was mainly known for being a triple African Snooker Champion, as well as a four more times African Snooker Championship runner-up.
Wael became famous on 20th of June 2014 for making the first ever 83 break in a 6-reds remarkable competitive match1. Wael’s opponent, Milad Elabbar of Libya, failed to make contact with a red on the break off and the cue ball landed behind the blue ball. Wael was awarded a free ball. He nominated the blue as free ball, potted it and potted the black to follow. From there he cleared the table the table, taking the black with each red. It was a trulu memorable match as Wael’s opponent was actually well and truly whitewashed: he didn’t score a single point all match. Wael won all four frames, each time taking the first opportunity to score. The final result was 71(71)-00, 87(83)-00, 36-00 and 46(46)-00.
Wael played in the 2022 World Seniors Championship at the Crucible, beating Maria Catalano by 3-0, before losing by 0-3 to Jimmy White in the last 16.
Australia’s Hassan Kerde defeated Matthew Scarborough 4-2 in the final of the 2025 Asia-Pacific Seniors Snooker Championship to earn a place at the World Seniors Snooker Championship in May.
The 41-year-old cueist will compete at the iconic Crucible Theatre in Sheffield after becoming the latest continental champion – joining Craig Steadman (Europe), Fabio Anderson Luersen (Americas) and Charl Jonck (Africa).
A total of 43 players contested the event which was staged at the Club Forster in New South Wales, Australia and began with an initial group phase.
Kerde dropped just a single frame across four matches in a group that included former professional Robby Foldvari to book his place in the last 16 where he then downed Allen House 3-1.
Breaks of 63, 80 and 45 helped the Australian pick up further wins over David Wright (3-1) and Ian Barber (3-0) to reach the title match where he would face Scarborough.
The man from New Zealand, who won a WPBSA Q Tour Asia-Pacific title earlier this season, had eliminated Ian Davies, Mark Hannah and Foldvari in the knockout stages to set up a showdown with Kerde.
Kerde made a strong start to the best-of-seven frame final contest as he raced into a 3-0 lead to move one away from the title.
His opponent refused to go down without a fight and rallied by taking the next two reduce his deficit to just a single frame, but the Australian cueist was able to hold his nerve and take frame six by a scoreline of 75-32 to take the title and earn a place at the World Seniors Snooker Championship later this year.
The 2018 World Seniors Snooker champion boosted his hopes of a return to the flagship event at the Crucible Theatre by winning his first event of the season in Berkshire. The deciding frame victory for Canavan also denied Norman a fourth successive title in the Race to the Crucible Series.
Thirty-two competitors from five nations contested the two-day event and Canavan defeated Tam Mustafa (4-2) and former English Seniors champion Lee Stephens (4-3) to reach the final day.
A comfortable 4-1 defeat of Northern Ireland’s Billy Ginn earned a semi-final spot against World Seniors Snoooker’s world number one Wayne Townsend, who he overcame 4-2 to reach a final for the first time this season.
Norman’s seemingly unstoppable form continued over the weekend as he dropped just four frames in four games en route to the title match, last defeating Nigel Howe 4-1 at the semi-final stage.
In a high-quality final, the defending champion raced into a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven frame contest with breaks of 56 and 72. Canavan quickly rallied, however, to level before hitting a tournament high break of 111 to move one away from the title.
The two finalists went blow-for-blow as Norman once again hit back to deservedly force a deciding frame. Fittingly, the title was ultimately decided by a single point as Canavan made a half-century to win the seventh frame by a scoreline of 62-61.
Back-to-Back Super Seniors Titles for Harris
Anthony Harris beat David Brock 2-1 in the final of the Super Series event to win a second consecutive title.
The event is open to all cueists over the age of 55 and was held on Sunday alongside the main Race to the Crucible series event.
The 56-year-old from England was one of 15 cueists involved in the one-day competition and beat Neil Carroll (2-1) and Karl Townsend (2-1) to reach the last four.
His semi-final opponent was the current Super Seniors number one and this season’s double-event winner John Hunter. Harris’ fine form continued as he ran out a 2-1 victor with a top break of 56 to reach the title match.
Fellow countryman David Brock had dropped just a single frame en route to the final and took the opener in the best-of-three frame contest. Harris hit back, however, to force a decider before taking frame three to secure a third Super Seniors title of the campaign.
The penultimate Race to the Crucible Series event will take place on 7-9 March at The Crucible Club in Reading, England
The WPBSA World Seniors Tour 