The tournament was played in Milton Keynes, under social distancing rules, from November 2 to November 8, 2020. Neil Robertson was the defending champion. No less than four Grove players were involved, all on merit, which is quite remarkable as there were only 13 actual champions in the draw. Other than Neil, the defending champion, Luca Brecel (CLS 2020 winner), Ding Junhui (UK championship 2019 winner), and Judd Trump who qualified multiple times were also in the draw.

Mark Allen won the tournament, playing exceptionally well: en route to the title he beat all three players at the top of the rankings: Ronnie O’Sullivan (2) the World Champion in the QFs, Judd Trump the World number one in the SFs, and Neil Robertson (1), the defending champion in the Final. Allen prevailed by 10-6.

Neil was very gracious in defeat, as always:

“His safety play was very solid throughout the whole match. My safety against Selby in the semis was fantastic and today it wasn’t anywhere near those levels unfortunately. My scoring was very good throughout the match but I could have done better with some of my safeties and Mark capitalised and he thoroughly deserved to win the match. He played a brilliant match throughout and he has beaten some great players on the way to winning it, like I did last year.”

(source WST)

In the semi-finals, Neil had beaten Mark Selby in a match of the highest quality that went to a deciding frame. The match featured six centuries, threes by each player, and six other breaks over 50. That’s some standard! He had previously beaten Ding, by 6-4, in the QFs.

Judd Trump had been outplayed by Mark Allen in the semi-finals, losing by 6-1. Luca Brecel had lost in the first round, beaten 402 by Mark Selby

All detailed results can be found on snooker.org