Champion of Champions (snooker)

The Champion of Champions is a professional non-ranking snooker tournament. It was held in 1978 and 1980 and was then revived in 2013 by Matchroom Sport. The reigning champion is Neil Robertson.

The Champion of Champions features winners of World Snooker events over the preceding 12 months, with the field topped up, if necessary, from the current World Rankings. In 2015 the tournament had a prize fund of £300,000, of which £100,000 goes to the winner.

History

The event was created in 1978 by boxing promoter Mike Barrett. The event was contested by four players at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England. It was played over two days with the semi-finals on the first day and the final on the second day. World Champion Ray Reardon beat the Masters winner Alex Higgins 11–9 in the final. Brief highlights were shown on ITV's World of Sport on the following afternoon.

The event was not held in 1979 but appeared again in 1980 at the New London Theatre in Drury Lane, London but in a different format. Ten players competed in the tournament, split into two groups. Each group played a round robin with the winners of the groups advancing to the final. Doug Mountjoy beat John Virgo 10–8 in the final. The tournament was then abandoned since the audiences had been poor and the event financially unsuccessful.

1978 Champion of Champions

The 1978 Daily Mirror Champion of Champions was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament held on Thursday 2 and Friday 3 November 1978 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England. Four players contested the tournament which was held over two days. The event was promoted by Michael Barrett, a boxing promoter.

Ray Reardon easily won the first semi-final 6–1 after taking a 5–0 lead. In the evening match Doug Mountjoy led 3–2 but Alex Higgins won the next four frames to win 6–3. The 8th frame was won on a respotted black. In the final Reardon led Higgins 6–4 after the afternoon session. In the evening Reardon extended his lead to 9–5 before Higgins won the next four frames to level the match. In the 19th frame Reardon had a 77 clearance to win the frame and then won the 20th frame easily to win the match.

Brief highlights were shown on ITV's World of Sport on the following afternoon (Saturday 4 November, 3:10pm).

Prize fund

The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:

1980 Champion of Champions

The 1980 Champion of Champions was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament held from 2–12 October 1980 at the New London Theatre in Drury Lane, London. 10 players contested the event, divided into two groups of 5. Within each group everyone played all the others in a round robin format. The winners of the groups played in the 19-frame final. In the round-robin stage matches were over 9 frames with all frames played, even after the match had been won. The New London Theatre had hosted the Masters between 1976 and 1978.

Group B was completed first. Terry Griffiths needed to win his last two matches by good margins to finish ahead of Doug Mountjoy. He led Graham Miles 5-1 but eventually only won 6-3. This result left him having to beat Mountjoy by at least 6-3 to qualify. Mountjoy took a 4-3 lead and, although Griffiths won the match 5-4, Mountjoy qualified for the final. In group A, John Virgo won all his matches 5-4 to qualify ahead of Steve Davis. In the final Virgo took a 3-0 lead but Mountjoy fought back to be just 5-4 behind after the afternoon session. In the evening session the match was level at 8-8 before Mountjoy won the next two frames to win the match in front of a crowd of 700.

L'Équipe Champion of Champions

L'Équipe Champion of Champions (French: Champion des champions de L'Équipe) is an award presented by the daily sports newspaper L'Équipe.

International

* — 1987 award taken away after doping scandal

French

References