Youngsters and rookie professionals emerge successful from 2025 Q School gauntlets

The last chance saloon for most players to win a professional tour card for the upcoming 2025/26 World Snooker Tour season - which begins in the second half of June - a total of 12 cueists navigated the Q School chaos and each earned themselves a guaranteed two terms on the sport’s top tier.

There is a fresh feel to this year’s roll of honour, as seven of the 12 players have won professional status for the first time in their careers.

Four players are immediately bouncing back to the pro ranks having been relegated just weeks before during World Championship qualifying, while one is returning to the World Snooker Tour after a year’s absence.

Nine of the 12 graduates are aged 30 or under, with the other three being 38, 40, and 40.

Players from six different nations made it through: England (5 players), China (3), Thailand, Switzerland, Poland, Northern Ireland (1 each).

Despite a plethora of high-profile players - several of whom were professionals the month before - having taken part at this year’s Asia-Oceania Q School held at the Kiatthada Billiards Snooker Club in Bangkok, all four graduates who emerged are collecting pro tour cards for the first time. These were Chatchapong Nasa, Liu Wenwei, Xu Yichen, and Zhao Hanyang.

Thai ace Nasa (27-years-old) qualified on home soil while Liu (21yo), Xu (38yo) and Zhao (25yo) join the substantial Chinese contingent on the pro tour.

From that quartet, Xu - on his Q School debut - had the most dramatic passage through. In the second and last event, Xu eliminated former professionals Soheil Vahedi and Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon both via deciding frames before ousting Babar Masih 4-3 on the final black in a deciding frame in the final round.

In the UK Q School held at the Mattioli Arena, Liam Pullen (England) was the first player to win his card.

At 19-years-old, Pullen is the youngest of this year’s graduates, and it is already the second time in his career that he has negotiated the carnage of Q School.

The current English national under-21 champion was relegated following his first stint on the professional circuit, but the teenager can take inspiration from players who have been in a similar situation, such as reigning World Champion Zhao Xintong, who was demoted after his maiden pro spell before re-earning his stripes from Q School and then going from strength to strength.

Pullen is one of four players who immediately return to the pro ranks following recent relegation - the other three were Alexander Ursenbacher (29yo, Switzerland), David Grace (40yo, England), and Ian Burns (40yo, England). Ursenbacher graduates for a joint-record fourth time.

The other player who has been a four-time Q School winner is Craig Steadman - he nearly made it five when he reached the final round of event one, but he was defeated 4-1 by former European amateur champion Oliver Brown (30yo, England), who returns to the World Snooker Tour after a year away from it.

The three professional newbies who navigated the 2025 Q School maze in Leicester were twenty-somethings Mateusz Baranowski (27yo, Poland), Connor Benzey (23yo, England), and Fergal Quinn (25yo, Northern Ireland) - the latter two came from event two.

Current Polish national champion Baranowksi is set to join compatriots Antoni Kowalski and 14-year-old Michał Szubarczyk on the tour this upcoming campaign.