Players Championship snooker: Why is next 147 break so important? Could Ronnie O'Sullivan make landmark max?

Published 21/02/2024 at 10:13 GMT

A mark of the rising standards in professional snooker is perhaps best represented by the astonishing regularity of 147 breaks in the sport. Five have been produced in the opening two months of the year with Gary Wilson compiling the 199th in televised history at the Welsh Open on Saturday. Will the Players Championship in Telford this week stage the landmark 200th maximum of all time?

Watch Wilson’s maximum 147 break against Higgins in Welsh Open semi-final

Gary Wilson produced the 199th maximum break in the modern era of professonalism in the Welsh Open semi-finals in Llandudno on Saturday night, with the chance to compile the landmark 200th 147 firmly on the table at the Players Championship in Telford.

Mark Allen managed a 146 against Mark Williams in his 6-3 win over the three-time world champion in the first round of the 16-man event on Tuesday amid a flurry of maximums in the first two months of 2024.

Since the turn of the year, five have been added to the overall haul with Wilson making the fifth of his career against Higgins, who had just become the oldest player in history at the age of 48 years and 268 days to record a maximum when he made the 198th against Fan Zhengyi at the Championship League earlier this month.

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Allen and Ding Junhui both produced maximums at the Masters in January, while Kyren Wilson also rolled in a 147 against Tom Ford at the Championship League four days before Higgins weighed in with the 13th of his golden career.

Six-time world champion Steve Davis compiled the first televised 147 break at the 1982 Lada Classic in Oldham, the solitary maximum of his celebrated life and times, but in a mark of rising standards all the major numerical 147 records have been recorded since the millenium.

David Gray made the 50th 147 against Mark Selby at the 2004 UK Championship in York, Selby the 100th against Ricky Walden at the 2013 UK Championship in York and Zhou Yuelong the 150th maximum against Lyu Haotian at the 2019 Indian Open in Kochi.

Allen makes Masters maximum 147 break against Selby

Snooker maximums have become such a regular occurring feature in snooker that dwindling prize money for the feat also tends to greet them, with Wilson earning a top break prize of £5,000 for his 147 break in Wales.

Contrast this with world No. 1 Ronnie O'Sullivan's earnings for piecing together the fastest 147 in history in five minutes and 20 seconds against Mick Price at the World Championship in 1997.

The snooker GOAT's knock was worth a total of £165,000 (including the £18,000 high break prize) - £4,583 a shot or £536 a second back in the day.

O'Sullivan – a 6-2 winner over Zhou at the Players Championship on Tuesday evening – also holds the record for maximum breaks with 15 compiled between 1997 and 2018, but is apparently refusing to add to that haul because he does not feel the incentives are worth it.

"I could maybe have had another five or six," O'Sullivan told Eurosport on Saturday. "But I went on strike a long time ago. Until they start bumping up the prize money, I might take the risk."