ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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The 2020 Snooker World Championship is the twenty-sixth and last event of the 2019-2020 season of snooker, and is the 80th edition of this tournament, which took place from 31 July to 16 August 2020, at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, for the 44th time.

It is the third and last season tournament of the Triple Crown.

Initially, the tournament was due to be played between 18 April and 4 May but, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Snooker Tour announced on 20 March, on its official website, that the event should be postponed to dates, adding, therefore, to the Tour Championship, postponed on 17 of the same month; on 22 April, the new dates were announced. On 16 June, it was announced that the qualifying will be held in closed doors between 21 and 28 July, at the English Institute of Sport, thus replacing the previous dates (8-15 April). The board of these was communicated on July 10.

For the first time since 1995 this event started on Friday and not on Saturday, and ended on Sunday and not on Monday.

Due to the difficult situation due to the pandemic, they decide not to participate in the qualifying rounds Zhou Yuelong, Xiao Guodong, Zhao Xintong, Li Hang, Yuan Sijun, Marco Fu, Mei Xiwen, Zhang Anda, James Wattana, Zhang Jiankang, Chang Bingyu, Andy Lee, Chen Zifan, Xu Si, Bai Langning, Leiudfha

In the final phase there is also a small number of spectators, who had to follow the guidelines indicated by the British government; following this, the snooker was the first indoor sport played with the limited presence of the public. However, during the first day of the game (on 31 July), the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson officially announces that the event will be held without public, starting from the following day (on 1 August). To fill the audience's absence, the World Snooker Tour added the possibility to activate some applauses recorded during the entrance to the player's room, after the realization of a "centone", following a nice play, and at the end of the frames and matches. On August 13, however, it was announced to want to play the final open doors.

On 22 July two records were beaten: Ukrainian Iulian Boiko became the youngest player to take part in qualifying (14 years and 10 months), while Belgian Ben Mertens became the youngest to win a match, thanks to James Cahill's first qualifying round (15 years, 9 months and 9 days).

On August 3, Ronnie O'Sullivan won the match against Thepchaiya Un-Nooh at the best of the 19 fastest frames in the history of the World Championship at the Crucible (108 minutes).

On August 6, John Higgins made his tenth 147 career (the third in double digit together)