Marco Fu ready for snooker return at UK Championship qualifiers after injury layoff
Three-time ranking event winner Marco Fu is set for his competitive snooker return this weekend at the 2025 UK Championship qualifiers in Wigan.
The former world number five has been out of action for the past couple of months after fracturing his elbow in September.
It left the 47-year-old having to pull out of both the Xi’an Grand Prix and Northern Ireland Open events which he previously won matches in and qualified for.
The Hong Kong star also had to pull out from International Championship and Scottish Open qualifying.
But Fu is due back on the baize this Saturday morning at the Robin Park Leisure Centre where he faces compatriot and three-time world women’s champion Ng On Yee in the first qualifying round of snooker’s second-most prestigious ranking event.
If one Hong Kong derby wasn’t enough, the winner of that tie will play Wang Yuchen in the second qualifying round - another one of the four HK cueists currently with a professional tour card (the other being Ka Wai Cheung).
For Fu to reach to the main draw, televised stages at the Barbican Centre in York (November 29 to December 7) he would need to overcome four qualifying rounds in Wigan. The two highest ranked players in his qualifying section are Zhou Yuelong and Matt Selt.
Fu’s injury came at a very inopportune moment after a successful start to the season that saw him reach the last 32 of the Wuhan Open - defeating world number 16 Chris Wakelin with three century breaks in the process - and also qualifying for the main draws of the English Open, British Open, and the aforementioned Xi’an Grand Prix and Northern Ireland Open.
In reward of his fast start to the 2025/26 season, Fu was named as the WPBSA Players’ Player of the Month for June 2025 - the first-ever recipient of the new monthly prize from snooker’s governing body.
Currently with a seasonal tally of 12 centuries to name, Fu will be trying to make up for lost time in Wigan over the next week and regain his momentum.
Earlier in this calendar year, Fu - who has racked up five maximum 147 breaks in top flight competition - scored an ultra-rare 16-red total clearance during World Championship qualifying in Sheffield.
The former Premier League winner very nearly won the UK Championship in 2008. The number 14 seed at the time, Fu defeated Barry Hawkins, Matthew Stevens, Joe Perry and then Ali Carter to reach the final in Telford, but was denied the biggest accolade of his career by Shaun Murphy in the final who pipped him in a deciding frame, 10-9.
Fu was close to another UK final appearance in 2016 but was ousted by Ronnie O’Sullivan 6-5 in the semi-finals. He has made a further four quarter-finals in the Triple Crown event down the years.
Several big names are scheduled to take part in 2025 UK Championship qualifying over the next several days, with players entering at different stages of the gauntlet depending on their world ranking position following the recently completed International Championship in Nanjing.
Amongst this players list includes reigning ranking event champions Stephen Maguire, Jack Lisowski, Tom Ford and Lei Peifan, former UK Champions Jimmy White and Matthew Stevens (as well as Maguire), and former World Champions Stuart Bingham and Ken Doherty.