The 2019–2020 Championship League was a professional snooker tournament, taking place over most of the 2019-20 snooker season from 7 October 2019 to 5 March 2020 at the Morningside Arena in Leicester, England. The event features seven group stages before a finals stage in March 2020; the first four played in October, two in January, and the final group played in March. It was the 13th staging of the Championship League. The event featured a total prize fund of £182,400 with the winner receiving £20,700. The losing finalist received £6,000 more than the winner due to having played in all groups starting from Group 3.
Martin Gould was the defending champion, having won the 2019 edition of the tournament, beating Jack Lisowski 3–1 in the final.[1] However, Gould did not participate in this event. Scott Donaldson won the tournament, having qualified from group four and defeated Graeme Dott 3–0 in the final. This was the first professional snooker title of Donaldson's career.
Tournament format
The event took place at the Morningside Arena in Leicester (shown setup for basketball).
The Championship League was a professional snooker event that took place between 7 October 2019 to 5 March 2020 at the Morningside Arena in Leicester, England.[2] All matches were the best of 5 frames, and played as a round-robin, with seven groups consisting of seven players. From each group the top four players qualified for a knockout round, the winner of which qualified for an eighth "winners group". The lowest two players of each group are eliminated and the remaining four move to the next group, where they are joined by three more participants.[3]
The winners group is played in the same way, with the winner of the knockout phase named as champion, and a place at the 2020 Champion of Champions.[3][4] The event was sponsored by sports betting company BetVictor;[3] and was broadcast via streaming on various betting websites, as well as on zhibo.tv in China.[5]
Prize fund
The breakdown of prize money for the 2019–20 Championship League is shown below.[6]
Group 1–7
Winner: £3,000
Runner-up: £2,000
Semi-final: £1,000
Frame-win (league stage): £100
Frame-win (play-offs): £300
Highest break: £500
Winners' Group
Winner: £10,000
Runner-up: £5,000
Semi-final: £3,000
Frame-win (league stage): £200
Frame-win (play-offs): £300
Highest break: £1,000
Tournament total: £182,400
Tournament summary
Scott Donaldson won his first professional championship at the event.
Group 1 was played on 7 and 8 October 2019, where Neil Robertson defeated Ryan Day 3–2 in the final.[7][8] The second group was played on 9 and 10 October,[7] with Stuart Bingham defeating Mark Selby 3–1 to win the group.[9] After this, Selby and Barry Hawkins declined to continue, and were replaced by Xiao Guodong and Ben Woollaston, but both were eliminated in the third group.[10] Group 3 was played on 21 and 22 October 2019,[7] with Gary Wilson defeating Kyren Wilson 3–0.[11] The group 3 matches saw a record number of century breaks made in a Championship League group with a total of 24, beating the record of 23 from the previous year's Winners' Group.[12]
The fourth group was played on 23 and 24 October 2019.[7]Scott Donaldson defeated compatriot Graeme Dott 3–0 in the final.[13] Group 5 was played on 6 and 7 January 2020.[7]Mark Williams won all six of his group matches, but lost in the first round against David Gilbert 2–3. Anthony McGill defeated Gilbert in the final to win the group.[14] On 8 and 9 January 2020 in group six; Judd Trump won after a 3–1 victory over Graeme Dott.[15] Trump also made the highest break of the tournament, a 145 in group six.[16] Group 7 was played on 2 and 3 March 2020.[7] Dott defeated Williams 3–1 to be the last qualifier.[17]
The Winners' Group was played on 4 and 5 March 2020. On the first day, Trump made his 700th career century break in his round-robin match against McGill.[18][19] The four players who qualified from the Winner's Group were Trump, Dott, McGill and Donaldson.[20] Donaldson defeated Trump 3–1, whilst Dott beat Williams 3–2.[21] Donaldson won his first professional tournament with a 3–0 victory over Dott in the final.[22] Due to the additional prizes for frame wins, Donaldson was awarded a total of £20,700 throughout the tournament.[21]
Group 1
Group 1 was played on 7 and 8 October 2019. Neil Robertson was the first player to qualify for the Winners' Group.
