Last chance saloon for experienced title winners to prolong streak in professional snooker ranks

The tournament - which will conclude on Sunday - is the last chance saloon for cueists to earn a tour card for next season’s World Snooker Tour professional circuit that begins in just a few weeks’ time.

Since 2011, the annual Q School concept has provided a direct pathway for amateur snooker players to qualify for the sport’s top-flight and the chance to rub shoulders with the world’s top cueists and win big prizes.

The first event of this year’s UK Q School was completed on Monday lunchtime at the Mattioli with Liam Davies and Ka Wai Cheung immediately bouncing back to the pro ranks, Sean O’Sullivan returning after a two-year absence, and Phil O’Kane - a Q School stalwart - earning his top tier stripes for the first time.

Four more coveted tour cards will be dished out at Event Two, with the same best of seven frames, straight knockout format used throughout.

Two of the biggest names scrapping it out for one of those golden tickets are experienced duo and former top 16 ranked stars Robert Milkins and Mark Davis who are both trying to preserve long, unbroken spell’s on snooker’s premiership.

Both Milkins and Davis suffered early exits from Event One, with Milkins ousted 4-3 by Duane Jones in the last 64, and Davis being pipped by the same scoreline by Welsh youngster Oliver Briffett-Payne in his opening engagement.

It was only three world championships ago that Milkins - who is now aged 50 - was a top 16 seed for the main draw at the Crucible. Since then, though, the 2022 Gibraltar Open and 2023 Welsh Open champion suffered a huge downturn in fortunes and a deep slide down the world rankings, so much so that he fell outside of the world’s top 64 at the end of last season.

Milkins is scheduled to be back in Q School action on Thursday afternoon when he faces Belgium's Sybren Sokolowski in the round of 64.

'The Milkman' has to win five consecutive matches, otherwise he will be off the professional circuit for the first time since the 1997/98 season, and facing the prospect of returning to the amateur ranks in order to get his tour card back.

Fellow Englishman Davis has enjoyed an even longer stint on the professional snooker tour, of which he has been a part of ever since 1991 with no unbroken spells.

A former world number 12, Davis is one of the greatest players of all-time never to have won a full ranking event title, although he did secure back-to-back world 6-reds crowns in 2012 and 2013, and won the Masters qualification competition title in 2002.

53-year-old Davis begins his latest challenge against teenager Arsenii Korolev on Thursday lunchtime.

A plethora of other players who were relegated from the top tier last month during the world championship qualifiers are in the draw: Haydon Pinhey, Robbie McGuigan, Chris Totten, Wang Yuchen, Kreishh Gurbaxani, Duane Jones, Allan Taylor, Farakh Ajaib, Mitchell Mann, Haris Tahir, Bulcsu Revesz, Gong Chenzhi, and Sanderson Lam.