Snooker stars chase big money at Heyball Super Tour event in Tianjin

Joy World Heyball Tour
A plethora of professional snooker stars - including former world champions Mark Williams, Stuart Bingham and Graeme Dott - will swap cue codes over the next few days as they attempt to win the pre-tax first prize of $278,000USD on offer at the latest Super Tour event in China on the global Heyball circuit.

Taking place in Tianjin - the city that hosted last season's International Championship on the World Snooker Tour - the tournament runs from October 10-19.

The competition is the third of four Super Tour stops on this season’s Masters Tour. Zhang Kunpeng triumphed at event one in Changchun in June, and Chu Bingjie (more below) was victorious at event two in Bayannur in August.

Event four is set between November 27 to December 6 with the Grand Finals scheduled for March to April, 2025.

As well as Williams, Bingham and Dott, fellow top tier exponents Ricky Walden, Gary Wilson, David Lilley, Elliot Slessor, Andrew Pagett and Louis Heathcote will also chance their arms on the 9 foot table in Tianjin, taking advantage of a rare free week on the professional circuit before the main venue stages of the Northern Ireland Open in Belfast.

Players representing several different countries are set to compete in Tianjin, but the undisputed favourite for the title is the red-hot Chu from the host nation, who is currently on a reported winning streak of approximately 50 successive competitive matches.

Chu collected the $700,000USD first prize at the 12th staging of the Grand Finals back in April - the blue-riband event on the circuit - and has bagged further big accolades during his staggering sequence this year.

At the most recent station event in Bayannur, Chu won both the Division One and Super Tour events back-to-back, pocketing a combined prize of $361,000USD for his efforts.

And in recent days, Chu claimed the latest Division One top prize - the 13th Masters Tour title of his career - in Tianjin, defeating Zhang Taiyi 19-14 in the final. He will now try to complete another brilliant double in the coming days.

Multiple-time World Champion and BCA Hall of Famer Darren Appleton has been singing Chu's praises on social media, estimating that the world's current top player has won around $1.5 million to $2 million in prize money this year alone. Appleton himself is also in Tianjin.

Heyball Champion of Champions and Oceania Open Championships 2024 review

It has been a very busy period on the Joy World Heyball Tour, with the Champion of Champions and Oceania Open Championships double-header completed earlier this week in Gosforth, Australia.

Following on from last month's European Opens and World Championships in Slovenia, both events in New South Wales had individual men's and women's divisions with equal prize money on offer.

Great Britain's Clint I'Anson - a former world champion from the English 8-ball pool world - defeated the USA's Corey Deuel 7-2 in the final to win the men's Champion of Champions event and $30,000USD top prize. China's Shi Tianqi denied Wei Tzu-Chien (Chinese Taipei) 6-3 in the title match to collect the same purse in the women's edition.

A few days later, Shi completed a double as she got the better of Kelly Fisher (Great Britain) 6-4 in the final to claim the Oceania Open, while Australian Justin Sajich tasted success on home soil when he stopped Alex Montpellier (France) 7-2 in the men’s showpiece match. Both Shi and Sajich trousered $10,000USD each for those triumphs.

Following the Tianjin Super Tour stop, the Joy World Heyball Tour travels to Qatar for the Asian Heyball Championship (October 19-22) and Asian Heyball Open (October 23-26). The African Heyball Championships then take place soon after in Marrakesh, Morocco (October 30 to November 2).

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