Bizarre scenes at Hong Kong snooker event, as fans ordered to leave arena due to 'midnight curfew'

It was an historic day in Hong Kong as the city hosted its first professional snooker ranking tournament since 1989 with the opening Players Series event of the season. During the first session in the afternoon, Masters champion Shaun Murphy was amongst the opening winners.

After a short turnaround, the evening session began with Judd Trump and John Higgins both winning their round one ties - newly-minted World Open champion Higgins won a lengthy affair with Ali Carter that went to a deciding frame.

However, that wasn't the end of the action on day one of the £700,000 ranking event with World Champion Kyren Wilson and Matthew Selt following Trump's win, and Chinese stars Wu Yize and Pang Junxu going on the table that Higgins had just come off. The 32-player tournament uses a roll-on, roll-off format for the first three days, with two matches on each table each session.

Drama wasn't just confined to the snooker table, though, as the clock ticked on during the session.

Selt had just made a break of 118 to take a 3-2 lead over Wilson, and stand one frame away from a big victory and a place in the last 16. But then both players were seen leaving the arena and there was a very long pause in play, with fans watching the coverage away from the arena confused to what the wait was.

The TWSportsManagement account on X/Twitter - a management group owned by Wilson's brother Taylor who look after several professional snooker players - cleared things up with a post that fans in the arena had to leave immediately due to an apparent ‘midnight curfew’.

There was significant hustle and bustle for several minutes by spectators leaving the impressive new venue, with around 20 minutes until the midnight hour was due to strike. Despite the upheaval and disturbance, play continued on the secondary table between Wu and Pang, who were still in the early stages of their meeting.

At the time of writing, it is still unclear the exact reason why the live fans had to leave - whether that be for a local government or venue policy, or to do with safety, transport and noise concerns.

Both matches continued in front of no live fans.

On the table, it was a fascinating match between number two seed Wilson and number 31 seed Selt.

Selt took the opening frame along with a 51, but Crucible king Wilson made breaks of 57 and 133 as he went 2-1 up. Wilson also crafted a 61 in frame four but Selt levelled up with a 69 before the 118 put him ahead.

Following the stoppage for fans leaving the arena, Wilson constructed the third century of the tie with a 111, before making a match-winning 87 in the deciding frame.

Wilson sets up a mouth-watering round two tie with the in-form Higgins on Thursday.

For the 2025 World Grand Prix draw and results, please visit our tournament information centre here.