Crucible star Joe O'Connor's background as a whizz-kid world pool champion

Long before he was eliminating four-time world champion and fellow Leicester cueist Mark Selby from snooker’s blue riband event on his Crucible debut, Joe O’Connor was a dominant force in the world of English 8-ball pool.

From a hotbed of pool - Selby was the WEPF world 8-ball champion in 2006 - O’Connor took to the smaller table as an 11-year-old, and it wasn’t long before he was making a big name for himself, earning a debut in the England junior team aged only 13.

In a matter of a few years, O’Connor was established as one of the most decorated junior pool players, ever, with a collection of global accolades.

He reached the final of the EEPF European Junior Pool Championship three years running at the start of the 2010s, defeating Frank Costello in the 2010 final and Jack Smithers in the 2012 title match to become a two-time continental champ.

O’Connor also made three successive appearances in the WEPF World Junior Pool Championship final between 2011 to 2013. In 2012, he pipped Callum Singleton in a deciding frame in Blackpool to become a Euro and world junior champion in the same year.

A future world’s top 32 ranked snooker player, O’Connor also won two WEPF World Junior Masters crowns, whilst in team competition he played a part in helping England win the WEPF World Junior Team Championship. In 2013, he played alongside teammate Louis Heathcote - who was only a few frames away from qualifying for the Crucible this year - on the way to the world team title.

Although O’Connor has focused his attention on the 12 foot by 6 table over the last decade or so, he was recently lured back to his small table roots to play on the highly-successful and revered Ultimate Pool professional circuit competing against several of 8-ball pool’s greatest-ever exponents.

At the 2023 Pro Series Event 6, O’Connor went all the way to the final where he lost 6-4 to France’s Christophe Lambert. Earlier during the same weekend, Selby reached the semi-finals of Event 5 on his return to 8-ball singles action.

As well as O’Connor, Selby and Heathcote, another Leicester cueman, world number 14 Tom Ford is also a very adept 8-ball pool player having been a two-time world championship quarter-finalist and a current Ultimate Pool professional.