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.

Sleep tight Wael, we will miss you!

1. It happened during an IBFS Championship ↩︎