James Wattana (born January 17, 1970 as Wattana Pu-Ob-Orm, then renamed to Ratchapol Pu-Ob-Orm in 2003) is a Thai professional snooker player.

Wattana won his first major tournament, the Camus Thailand Masters, in 1986, aged only 16. He turned professional in 1989, after winning the 1988 World Amateur Championship. His career peaked in the mid-1990s, when he twice won the Thailand Open and rose to number three in the world rankings. Prior to Wattana becoming a professional, snooker had been dominated by British (and to a lesser extent Irish, Canadian and Australian) players.

He was the eighth professional player to earn more than £1 million in prize money, and with three maximums he is one of only six players to have scored more than two maximum breaks in competition. He scored his first one in 1991 at the World Masters and the second at the 1992 British Open, which was then with six minutes and nine second the fastest ever made.

Wattana's success caught the imagination of the Thai public, and he became the most popular sportsman in his home country.^{[citation needed]} He helped raise the profile of the game in the Far East, and has been followed into the game by many players from Thailand, Hong Kong and China, the most successful ones being Marco Fu and Ding Junhui. He is a Commander Third Class of the Most Noble Order of the Crown of Thailand, only the second sportsman to get the country's most prestigious civilian honour.

Ricky Walden is a snooker professional, born in Chester, England but living in Flintshire, Wales.

He is currently ranked 18th in the world. He won the 2008 Shanghai Masters, his first ranking final, having previously reached one further ranking quarter-final. He has spent four seasons in the top 48 of the rankings. His first appearance at the final stages of the World Championship came in 2009

He was one of the Young Players of Distinction in a scheme run in 2000, designed to help young players develop their playing and media skills, alongside Shaun Murphy, Stephen Maguire and Ali Carter. In 2001 he won the World Under-21 Championship.

He started the 2004/2005 season ranked at #78 in the world, but climbed 30 places that year. He beat John Higgins twice that season, at the Grand Prix and UK Championship, and reached the Quarter-Final of the China Open.

In 2005/2006 his best run was to the last 16 in the China Open, which he achieved by beating Stephen Maguire. In 2006/2007 he had 2 last-32 appearance including the UK Championship, where he lost to Ronnie O'Sullivan 8–9. He lost to eventual finalist Mark Selby in qualifying for the World Championship.

Stephen Gordon Hendry, MBE (born 13 January 1969) is a retired Scottish professional snooker player. In 1990, he was the youngest-ever snooker World Champion, at the age of 21. He has won the World Championship a record seven times and was snooker's world number one for eight consecutive years between 1990 and 1998, and again in 2006/2007. Hendry has the distinction of holding the most world ranking titles (36) and leads the field of snooker players with 775 competitive century breaks. He also holds the record with Ronnie O'Sullivan for the most competitive maximum breaks, with 11.

Hendry started playing snooker in 1981, aged 12. Two years later he won the Scottish U-16 Championship. He also appeared on BBC's Junior version of Pot Black. The following year he won the Scottish Amateur Championship and also became the youngest ever entrant in the World Amateur Championship. In 1985, after retaining the Scottish Amateur Championship, he turned professional. At 16 years and three months old he was the youngest ever professional.

Ronald Antonio "Ronnie" O'Sullivan (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player known for his rapid playing style, and is nicknamed "The Rocket". He has been World Champion on four occasions (2001, 2004, 2008 and 2012) and, with career earnings of over £6 million is second after Stephen Hendry on snooker's all-time prize-money list. O'Sullivan has been the world's no. 1 player on five occasions, and has won a total of 24 ranking titles. He is second, again behind Hendry, on the list of players making the most competitive century breaks, with a total of 678. O'Sullivan has compiled 11 maximum breaks in professional competition, a record which he shares with Hendry. He also holds the record for the fastest maximum break, at 5 minutes 20 seconds.

O'Sullivan is considered by many fans, critics and professionals, including fellow multiple-World Championship winners Hendry and Steve Davis, as the most naturally talented player in the history of the game. He has, however, been involved in a number of controversial incidents during his career.

Jamie O'Neill (born 1962 in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland) is an Irish author. His critically acclaimed novel, At Swim, Two Boys (2001), earned him the highest advance ever paid for an Irish novel and frequent praise as the natural successor to James Joyce, Flann O'Brien and Samuel Beckett. He is currently living in Gortachalla in County Galway, having previously lived and worked in England for two decades.

O'Neill's work follows the imaginative route in Irish literature, unlike his realist contemporaries such as Colm Tóibín or John McGahern. Terry Pender commented on At Swim, Two Boys: "With only this work O'Neill can take his rightful place among the great Irish writers beginning with Joyce and ending with Roddy Doyle".

O'Neill was born in Dún Laoghaire in 1962 and was educated at Presentation College, Glasthule, County Dublin, run by the Presentation Brothers, and (in his words) "the city streets of London, the beaches of Greece." He was raised in a home without books, and first discovered that books "could be fun" when he read Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, a copy of which he had received as a Christmas gift. It took him two weeks and was the first book he ever finished. O'Neill was unhappy at home; he had a very difficult relationship with his father and ran away from home at age 17.