China News Agency, Beijing, February 20th. On the morning of the 20th Beijing time, the 46-year-old British veteran Milkins defeated the Grand Slam winner and "Magic" Murphy 9:7 to win the 2023 Snooker Welsh Open Championship. , which is also the second ranking championship in his career.

  With the end of the Welsh Open, all players participating in the 2023 Snooker Players Championship have been released, and Chinese players Ding Junhui and Zhou Yuelong are shortlisted.

  The final of the 2023 Snooker Welsh Open will be held on the 19th local time. The game adopts a 9-win system of 17 rounds and will be played in two stages.

  Milkins, who will celebrate his 47th birthday in half a month, can be called a "late bloomer". He only won his first ranking championship in the Gibraltar Open last year and is ranked 27th in the world.

Sean Murphy, 40, has nine ranking titles and is ranked 11th in the world.

In the semi-finals, the two famous British players defeated Chinese players Tian Pengfei and Pang Junxu respectively, and joined the final.

  In this campaign, Milkins first suppressed and then rose, falling behind 1:3 in the first 4 rounds.

But after chasing the score to a 4:4 tie in the first stage, Milkins took the lead in the second stage and finally won the championship with a total score of 9:7.

  A total of 9 Chinese players were shortlisted for the top 64 of the Welsh Open.

Among them, Ding Junhui, the "big brother" of Chinese billiards, lost the "Chinese Derby" with Cao Yupeng, and encountered a round of the main match. Tian Pengfei, Pang Junxu, Yuan Sijun, and Cao Yupeng advanced to the top 32.

After Cao Yupeng missed the top 16, the other three completed the "double jump" and advanced to the top 8. In the end, Tian Pengfei and Pang Junxu broke into the top 4, but both stopped in the semifinals.

  The Welsh Open is also the last ranking match before the Players Championship this season.

According to the rules, only the top 16 players in a single season can get a seat in the Players Championship for that season.

  Ding Junhui and Zhou Yuelong, who won the runner-up of the British Championship and the Northern Ireland Open respectively this year, are ranked 6th and 14th this season respectively.

In the past 4 months, Northern Ireland's "Small Steel Cannon" Mark Allen, who has won 3 ranking championships in a row, ranked first in the "fault" this season, O'Sullivan, who was ranked first in the world, and Neil Robertson, the world's fourth and defending champion None of them made it to the top 16 this season and missed the Players Championship.

  The 2023 Snooker Players Championship will seamlessly connect with the Welsh Open and will be held in the UK from the 20th to the 26th local time.

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