As promised … it just took a bit longer because I had a “nightmare” trip back to my island… ¹

Congratulations again Alfie!

and big thank you to World Seniors Snooker for having me!

1. A combination a of bad weather, delayed transports, canceled flight, temporarily lost luggage (… damaged too) … and arriving “home” only today as a result. ↩︎

Today’s final at the Crucible will be competed between two players who have been here before: Aaron Canavan, who won the title in 2018, and Alfie Burden who was runner-up in 2023.

Here is how the semi-finals unfolded as reported by WSS:

Burden and Canavan Set Up World Final Meeting

Alfie Burden and Aaron Canavan will meet in the final of the 2025 JenningsBet World Seniors Snooker Championship on Sunday afternoon.

The two former finalists reached the title match by overcoming Hassan Kerde and Dominic Dale respectively on a memorable semi-final Saturday at the iconic Crucible Theatre.

Canavan heads into the title match aiming to become only the second multiple champion of the most prestigious event in seniors snooker, after four-time winner Jimmy White, while Burden hopes to go one step further than he did in 2023 when he ended as runner-up to ‘The Whirlwind’.

Former professional Burden and Asia-Pacific Seniors champion Kerde, from Australia, kicked off a bumper session with a best-of-11 frame contest.

Burden was in fine form and he wasted no time in racing into a 4-0 lead with breaks of 57 and 65. The Australian briefly rallied, taking back-to-back frames to half the deficit, but a rapid-fire contribution of 97 put Burden back in the acendency and he secured his place in the final by taking the next frame.

Post-match, Burden said: “It was a tough game but I was pleased with the way I played and it stands me in good stead for the final. I’ve prepared well, practiced hard and I feel confident. I feel really strong – I’m going out and expecting to win tomorrow.”

The second semi-final of the afternoon saw Canavan face Dale and, after sharing the first four frames of the contest, ‘The Spaceman’ appeared to step up a gear and fired in back-to-back century breaks of 109 and 131 before moving one frame from victory by taking the seventh.

The man from Jersey refused to go away, however, and managed to take the next three frames with a top visit of 65 to force an unlikely deciding frame.

The decider was a nervy affair with both players spurning golden opportunities for the win. Ultimately, it was Canavan who took it on the colours to complete a famous comeback and set up a final meeting with Burden.

Canavan said: “It was tough. After last night, I was really tired but I gave myself a good talking to in the dressing room and came out fighting. It’s dream, you never think that you will get there and then all of a sudden something happens and you’re actually living the dream.”

Here are the scores:

There was a huge crowd in attendance, proof if it was needed, that Seniors Snooker IS marketable

And here are images from the matches:

These are the results of the quarter-finals yesterday at the Crucible:

Dominic entered the arena wearing a long fur coat and a hat… apparently a tribute to Alex Higgins. I know that Jason Francis started the Seniors tour because of Alex, who he wanted to help but I also know he quickly had to give up on the man who couldn’t really play anymore. But Alex game wasn’t the main issue, it’s his behaviour that caused a lot of problems … as had been the case all his life. Alex certainly changed snooker forever but, in my eyes, he was a terrible person and reading his bios didn’t change my opinion, quite the opposite. Anyway … back to yesterday action … as you can see by the scores, Dominic played very well and, despite winning frame 2, Joe was never really in the match.

Neither Alfie nor Tony scored really heavily in their match. There was no break over 53 in the match, and 53 isn’t usually enough in itself to secure a frame. But … what a battle this was. They played all seven frames and every frame was close and hard-fought. Tony was gutted and, I guess, Alfie was more relieved than really happy.

Hassan Kerde and Charl Jonk probably served us the best match on the day. Both played well, especially considering that neither had played at the Crucible before this event. A very happy Hassan was interviewed after the match, accompanied by his wife. They are Muslims and she was fully covered, wearing a long dress, and a scarf that completely covered her hair … but she was with him on the floor, all smiles, filming his interview with a very state of the art smartphone … 😊

The last match of the day was a late, rather scrappy affair. Wayne made the only big break of the match, a 85 but lost by 4-2. Both can play better but it was late and they had to wait a long time before the table became available for them. Aaron has won this title before and, maybe, that helped him. Unlike Wayne, he isn’t in uncharted territory here at the Crucible.

Here are the images I took on the day…

It’s fair to say that yesterday at the Crucible didn’t yield the results most fans expected and, in some cases, probably probably wished. Hopefully it will not deter fans to attend the event. Personally, I find it interesting to discover how good some of the “overseas” seniors are. They are proof that snooker is played at a high level for a long time in many parts of the world, something that the UK centric organisation of the sport doesn’t promote enough.

Here are the match results on the day:

Jimmy White remains the crowd favourite but he’s 63 now but played Alfie Burden a much younger man (48) who is still competing on the main tour and Jimmy had little answers to his opponent superior consistency. Also, Alfie was certainly very motivated because he lost to Jimmy in the final of this event in 2023. It was a very painful defeat for Alfie at the time but he can now put that behind him.

Nobody knew much about Charl Jonk¹ who had never played in this environment. Charl started slowly. He needed two frames to adapt to the conditions and the atmosphere. After that he proved to be very solid and a good scorer. He made two breaks over 60 in this match.

Tony Drago v Gerard Greene proved to be the best match on the day. It was tense, it was close and both played and scored well. Tony’s passion is strong as ever and he wears his heart on his sleeve. What’s not to like?

Hassan Kerde, from Australia, was an “unknown” quantity before his first match yesterday … he made four breaks over 50 in his trashing of Tony Knowles who scored just 61 points in total during the match.

Here are the afternoon session pictures:

And here the evening session pictures. Alas it’s very obvious that players like Jimmy and Ken losing early is likely to hit the attendance negatively. A lot of fans come to watch certain players only and aren’t very keen to “discover lesser known players

We¹ are at the Crucible. Yesterday was the first day of the 2025 World Seniors Snooker Championship.

Four matches were played yesterday, two in the afternoon, ttwo in the evening. All results are available on snooker.org.

Joe Perry 4-2 Fabio Luersen

This was a good match as you can guess by the scores. There was a break over 50 in every frame bar one. Joe is still very much main tour standard and Fabio gave him a good game. Keep in mind that in Brazil they play on slightly smaller tables, that Fabio had to travel to Europe, deal with a huge time difference, played professional and that this is the Crucible … he did, really, really well!

1. We means “my camera and me” … 😊 ↩︎

Dominic Dale 4-2 – Craig Steadman

A scrappier match and Proletina Velichkova debut on the Seniors tour. The first two frames were very close and generally the match was very, very scrappy, which was to be expected with these two…

Igor Figuereido 2-4 Wayne Townsend

It’s hard to know how much the pressure of being World Champion “weighted” on Igor. He was the heaviest scorer in this match but lost to an inspired Wayne who was supported by his wife and young daughter. Wayne is a very good player and those who follow the seniors snooker tour knew that already. Qualifying for this event isn’t easy. Wayne is also an “emotional” type of person and he showed his emotions during the match … for which he was criticised in some corners. So much so that he felt the need to apologise on Facebook:

Aaron Canavan 4-1 Andrew Norman

Aaron Canavan has won this title before and yesterday looked extremely determined to put his hands on the trophy again. Nothing against Aaron but I felt for Andrew who is a close friend and was well and truly outplayed for most of the match.