Cue Sports Weekly: The British Open Draw Heats Up in Leicester, Pune's $400K Heyball Showdown Edges Closer, and a Kiwi's Making Waves on the World Stage

Three ranking-event qualifiers deep and the Mattioli Arena still hasn't had a day off.

Meanwhile, the countdown to one of the richest events on the heyball calendar is now down to weeks, not months.

And there's a name worth knowing if you follow New Zealand's place in the wider cue sports world.

Let's get into it.

Pune's $400,000 Countdown Is Getting Real

Three weeks out now. The 2026 WPA Heyball World Championships land in Pune, India, on 12-15 August, and the closer it gets, the more this feels like the biggest thing on the heyball calendar this year. A USD $400,000 prize fund, 128 players split evenly across men's and women's draws, every match streamed on WPALive.TV.

That's not a regional stop dressed up as something bigger. That's genuinely global, pulling entries from all six WPA continental confederations.

Worth remembering while the countdown ticks over: heyball's biggest storyline of the year so far didn't come out of a ranking table at all. Ronnie O'Sullivan's competitive heyball debut back in late May, at the Huacai World Open in Deqing, ended in the last 32. But it's what he said afterward that stuck around.

He told CGTN he might walk away from snooker entirely inside three or four years to switch codes full time. Coming from a seven-time world champion, that's not a throwaway line. It's a genuine signal of where some serious money and serious attention is starting to point.

If you want a proper feel for what actually separates heyball from the pool most club players grew up on, before Pune gets going, we broke the real differences down properly in our Heyball vs 8-Ball comparison tool — same 15-ball rack, same rules on paper, completely different game once you look at the table, the pockets, and the clock. Worth five minutes before the streams start.

British Open Qualifiers Live in Leicester

Snooker hasn't left Leicester in what feels like weeks, and that's not really an exaggeration. The Mattioli Arena has hosted Championship League, the Shenzhen Open qualifiers, and now the British Open qualifiers, running 23-24 July, back to back to back behind closed doors.

Jimmy Robertson's the name to note from Shenzhen. He beat Zhou Yuelong on Wednesday to book his spot in the finals proper, a solid result against a dangerous opponent. And recent Championship League winner Jak Jones is straight back in action for the British Open, drawn against Matthew Selt.

Good timing for a confidence boost, if the form holds. Gary Wilson faces Ricky Walden, and Joe O'Connor gets a rematch of sorts against last year's runner-up Anthony McGill.

Unlike most ranking events this season, the British Open uses a random-draw format with just one round of qualifying before the venue stages properly, which tends to throw up some genuinely unpredictable matchups.

Worth keeping an eye on before the tour packs up and heads to Shanghai at the end of the month for the non-ranking Shanghai Masters, where Kyren Wilson returns as defending champion.

The Local Angle: A Kiwi Making Noise in Heyball's Biggest Event

Easy to think of heyball as something happening a long way from Auckland. Back in March, at the Liber Win and Joy Cup World Heyball Masters Grand Finals in Qinhuangdao, one of the sport's biggest events with a prize fund north of ¥11.5 million CNY, New Zealand's Kieran Dempsey put in a performance that turned heads on the international stage.

It's easy to miss stories like that when they happen half a world away in March and the news cycle moves on fast. But it matters. Heyball's still building its global footprint, and every result like Dempsey's is a small proof point that New Zealand players can genuinely compete on that stage, not just watch it from a distance.

Worth remembering next time the conversation turns to whether this sport has real legs outside China.

Drill of the Week: The Ghost Ball Line-Up

Discipline: Universal — works for 8-ball, 9-ball, and heyball alike Difficulty: Beginner to intermediate What it trains: Aim consistency and reading the correct contact point on a cut shot

Setup

Place five object balls in a straight line down the middle of the table, spaced about 5 or 6 cm apart depending on the size of the table. Set the cue ball at the head of the table, in line with the row.

The Task

Working down the line, pot each ball into the nearest side pocket using nothing but a cut shot. No combinations, no rail-first shots. Each one is a fresh cut angle as you move down the row, since your cue ball position shifts slightly after every shot.

If you miss two in a row, reset from the top.

Why It Works

Cutting a ball into a side pocket is one of the most common shots in any cue sport, and it's also one of the easiest to get sloppy on, since the margin for error on a cut shrinks fast as the angle gets tighter. This drill forces you to consciously find the ghost ball position, the invisible spot where the cue ball needs to make contact, on five different angles in a row rather than just the one you happen to feel like practicing.

Do this slowly at first. Speed only matters once your contact point is reliably correct, and rushing it just reinforces bad aim.

Looking Ahead

Snooker's qualifying grind wraps up soon, with the English Open qualifiers close behind the British Open before the tour heads to Shanghai. On the heyball side, all eyes are turning toward Pune, and we'll have proper coverage once the draw for that one is confirmed.

If you're planning your own club night or local tournament while all this plays out, our Tools section has a free draw maker that'll generate a random bracket for you in seconds, byes handled automatically, click-through winners as the night unfolds.

Worth bookmarking before your next interclub fixture.