Cue Sports Weekly - Ali Carter Wins at Home, and Both Home Nations Finals Are Now Done

Snooker's Home Nations Series has now delivered two finals in the space of a week, and both storylines from last week's turbulence have resolved themselves — neither the way the headlines were pointing.

The English Open — the second ranking event of the season, played at the Brentwood Centre — wrapped up on Sunday with Ali Carter beating Mark Williams 9-6 in the final. There's a nice detail buried in there too: Carter lives about forty minutes from the venue, so this was as close to a home-soil title as it gets on the circuit. Williams didn't leave empty-handed either. On his way to the final he made his 700th century break in professional competition, which is a genuinely rare career mark. Ding Junhui reached his first ranking semi-final in over seventeen months before running into Carter, and Shaun Murphy needed a deciding frame just to get past Judd Trump in the quarters. Zhao Xintong and Chang Bingyu, last week's big storylines, were both out well before the business end — Chang lost 3-4 to Kyren Wilson in the last 16, and Mark Selby went out to Wilson too, 3-4, a round earlier than his British Open form suggested.

Which brings us to that British Open cliffhanger from last week — the tournament played the week before this one, at Cheltenham. Selby did beat Liam Highfield in the semi as most people expected, 6-3 after an epic five-hour battle. But he couldn't finish the job in the final, losing 10-6 to Jak Jones, who picked up his third ranking final appearance in some style. Jones has since withdrawn from the English Open, with his second child due any day now — fair enough.

Meanwhile the Northern Ireland Open qualifiers are running right now in Leicester, wrapping up over the next day or so, with the tournament proper heading to Belfast's Waterfront Hall from 18-25 October.

9-Ball — Gorst Finally Gets His China Open

The 2026 WPA Pudong Tangzhen China Open finished in Shanghai this week, and it's a good redemption story. Fedor Gorst won it for the first time after finishing runner-up there last year, beating Wu Kun-Lin comprehensively in the final. On the women's side, Liu Shasha ended a thirteen-year wait for a second China Open title, seeing off fellow Chinese star Fu Xiaofang in the final. Gorst's win is also his first title outside the US since the World Pool Championship over two years ago, so it carries a bit of extra weight for him.

Morocco — The NZ Squads Are Confirmed

Last week we flagged that Kiwi players might be heading to the World English Pool Championship in Marrakech without a confirmed roster. That roster's out now, straight from the NZ International Eightball Federation, and it turns out this one's close to home .

The dates are locked in as 17-27 September, which corrects the 17-28 window doing the rounds elsewhere — worth going with the federation's own listing on that one.

The over-50's team is Barry Jones (captain), Jason Keats, Paul Epps, Dean Brown, and Colin Tranter, managed by Mark Watson. The men's team is Simon Singleton (captain), Bayden Jackson, Des Wilcox, Adam Lilley, Adam Shaw, Brendan Ng, Shane Breckon, and Kyri Michaelides, managed by Nicola Michaelides. The ladies' team is Keri Low (captain), Tara Jackson, Jojo Coleman, Gina Grimwood, Liz Hullen, and Victoria Heavey, managed by Jarna Blockley. And the under-23's are Riley O'Donnell (captain), Reuben Keats, and Charlotte Williams, managed by Sue Watson.

For anyone wanting the background on why this reds-and-yellows format plays so differently to the American pool most people grow up on, our history of 8-ball piece covers where that split actually came from.

Heyball — Quiet Week, Worth a Mention Anyway

Nothing fresh broke on the Heyball front this week — the WPA's news is still running on the Pune World Championships from mid-August. If you're still getting your head around how Heyball actually differs from the 8-ball most people grew up playing, our breakdown of Heyball vs pool covers the rules and fouls properly.

Weekly Drill — "The Nine-Ball Ladder"

Rack up a standard game of 9-ball — 1-ball on the foot spot at the front of the diamond, 9-ball dead centre of the widest row, everything else filled in around them. Cue ball starts on the head spot for the break.

The rule is simple: after the break, you have to pot the balls in strict ascending order, one through nine, using whatever position the table gives you. No cherry-picking an easy ball out of sequence because it's sitting on a pocket. This is the drill that actually teaches you to read position under real constraint, rather than always shooting the shot in front of you.

Score how far up the ladder you get before a foul or a miss breaks the run. Getting to at least 5 or 6 consistently is a solid result for club-level play; running the full rack is genuinely hard even for good amateurs.

Looking Ahead

The World English Pool Championship gets underway in Marrakech on Thursday and runs through to the 27th — expect a proper wrap on how the NZ squads got on next week. The Northern Ireland Open qualifiers should be finishing up by the time this goes live, with the venue stages not landing until Belfast in October. And the snooker tour rolls into China next, with the Shenzhen Open running 28 September to 4 October.

If you're running your own club knockout around any of this, our tournament draw maker will sort the bracket in under a minute, and the snooker foul explainer is there if the reds-and-yellows lot start arguing free ball rules with the snooker crowd. See you next week.

Sources for this week: 2026 English Open (Wikipedia) · 2026 British Open (Wikipedia) · WPA — Gorst and Liu Shasha crowned China Open champions · NZIEF — 2026 Men's Team · NZIEF — 2026 Ladies' Team · NZIEF — 2026 Over 50's Team · NZIEF — 2026 Under 23's Team