A first appearance in the LITEtask pro-am series for Jamie Cope in Event 5 saw his campaign kick off in great style, winning through the strong 80-player field and leaping into 12th place on the series ranking list.

Another hugely impressive performance from Simon Blackwell helped him to reach his second final of the series, his consistency and grit further rewarded with 2nd place on the overall list.

Gary Wilson (4th in the overall list, winner of the Grand Finals Day in the previous LITEtask series) and the dependable Barry Pinches were the losing semi-finalists.

There was also a solid performance from our friend Bex Kenna, who reached the last 16 of the event, only to lose out at the hands of series leader Peter Lines. Bex is quickly working her way up through the ranks on the World Women’s Tour, after a breakthrough first season which included a 3-2 comeback victory over Reanne Evans at Dunstable Snooker Club in the Connie Gough Trophy 2017 semi-final.

There’s still everything to play for in the final event of the series as the top 32 could shake up significantly and, as always, with the generous LITEtask sponsorship, the prize pot is significant.

Event 6 is on the 12th November at the Northern Snooker Centre.

Full ranking list, previous results: LITEtask Open Series Summer / Winter 2017

Billy Castle’s final act as an amateur snooker player was to clinch the EASB’s season showpiece, the English Amateur Championship Final 2017, defeating three-time winner David Lilley 10-8.

You can see the full match (both sessions) here. Full match stats appear below.

It’s a special weekend in the snooker world as the curtain is raised on the 2017/18 professional snooker season in Riga, Latvia, while the English Amateurs are busy resolving the last remaining questions from the 2016/17 season at the South West Snooker Academy.

Whether or not you have access to Eurosport TV to follow the top professional players, we strongly recommend you keep a close eye on the talented amateur players who’ll be vying to take their place on the Pro Tour in the fullness of time.

On Saturday we’ll be bringing you a couple of stars of the future as the U21’s Championship is decided. Youngster Mark Lloyd takes on Lewis Gillen in our first streamed match, with a rare opportunity this weekend to simultaneously land the U18 title, when he faces Sean McAllister.

On Sunday the main event will be the 101st English Amateur Final. The Northern and Southern section finals are scheduled for Saturday, but spare a thought for Ashley Carty who misses out on his chance to qualify via the Northern section because of his involvement in Riga. As a result, three-time winner David Lilley will now await the winner of the Southern Final which pits Andrew Norman, in his home club, against Billy Castle.

We’ll have a round-up of the match scores from all the other age groups – U14, U16, U18, U40, Masters, Over 55s – as well as the Six Reds Championship final.

Live Stream and Live Scoring

Watch all the action from the U21’s Final and the English Amateur Final on our YouTube channel at:

• youtube.com/mysnookerstats/live

Follow our results service on our tournament page here:

• mysnookerstats.com/tournament/trn553

Steven Hallworth emerged victorious after another day of battle at the Northern Snooker Centre, here being congratulated by Mark Pears, the leading light of event sponsors, LITEtask.

Ng On Yee becomes the first new Ladies’ World Champion for a decade after eclipsing long-reigning champ Reanne Evans in the semi-final and Emma Bonney in the final.

Ben Harrison claimed the title with a 10-6 victory over Ant Parsons in a fine encounter which saw both men scoring solidly throughout, registering 83% and 81% positional success respectively.

After a seesaw morning session in which neither player could establish a lead, Ben forged ahead at the start of the afternoon session and then refused to let a determined Ant come back at him, answering an excellent 78 from Ant with a 75 of his own to maintain the breathing space he’d earned. He eventually closed out the match by clinching the final two close-fought frames he needed.

Ronnie was at his imperious snookering best throughout the entire week at Alexandra Palace, dropping only 7 frames on his way to a fifth Masters title.

We’re very excited to bring you our first live scoring event from Spain on Sunday 27th October. This is an invitational tournament organized by Ander Isuskiza, the driving force behind Spanish Snooker Blog, himself a qualified EBSA coach. The event will feature some of the best players currently plying their trade in the country.

And we have our first four qualifiers through to Finals Day:

Ben Harrison

Kishan Hirani

Adam Wicheard

Jamie Clarke

To keep up with the latest order of merit list (#SBOOM), head over to our Score Centre.

For a full round up of the first weekend’s events, head this way to hear from the man himself: snookerbacker-classic-2014-gloucester-opening-weekend-review

Ronnie makes it five: 2013 World Snooker Champion. Photo courtesy of Monique Limbos.

Here’s a few adjectives that should never be used in association with Ronnie O’Sullivan: natural, gifted, blessed. It might look that way to the rest of us, but the truth is he’s one of the hardest working players the game has ever known.

He may actually have been born for this game, but only in the sense that his dad started him off playing top players from a very young age and gave him access to a table, instruction and practice. He studied every aspect and nuance of the other players’ techniques and cherry-picked from these to produce a style better than any of them. In many respects, you could say snooker was put on a plate for him and he simply took advantage…