2024 Xi'an Grand Prix Snooker: Luca Brecel forfeits match after no-show at venue

As per official tournament rules, the 2023 World Champion was docked a frame for not being at the venue for the scheduled start time of 14:30BST. The contest was due to be livestreamed on the World Snooker Tour Facebook page, but WST put a post out on X (Twitter) saying that due to the late arrival of Brecel, Pang Junxu v Michael Holt would be shown on the feature table instead.

Again, as per the rules, Brecel went 2-0 down after 15 minutes from the start time and then lost a frame every five minutes after that. As he wasn't present at 15:00 (30 minutes from the allocated start) he relinquished the match, 5-0.

World number 83 Miah qualifies for next month's main venue stages in China where he is set to play either Sanderson Lam or Zak Surety.

Brecel is currently ranked fourth in the world, but with £500,000s worth of points due to come off his total following the 2025 World Snooker Championship - as per the two-year rolling cycle - he could plummet down the standings if he doesn’t have a successful 2024/25 season.

As it stands on the provisional end-of-season list, the 29-year-old is down in 51st, and he won’t be collecting anything from this new £850,000 ranking event in China.

Following his memorable victory at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in May 2023, Brecel has struggled for consistency and results on the professional snooker circuit.

During the 2023/24 campaign, Brecel did reach the finals of the Shanghai Masters and Riyadh Season World Masters of Snooker; both invitational events where he lost to Ronnie O’Sullivan in the title matches. Alongside Reanne Evans, he won the 2024 World Mixed Doubles in Manchester.

However, in ranking events, since his World Championship triumph, Brecel has been past the last 16 of a tournament only once - at the 2024 Welsh Open.

The World Snooker Tour did put out a post on X saying “Luca Brecel has not arrived for his #XianGrandPrix qualifier this afternoon in Leicester. His opponent, Hammad Miah, has been awarded the match 5-0 and will be heading to China next month.”

At the time of writing, it is unclear as to why Brecel did not turn up. We hope that nothing untoward happened.

EDIT: It was later discovered that Brecel did not arrive due to travel/traffic issues. He contacted the World Snooker Tour that he would be late, but in the end, he didn’t get there at all.