Luca Brecel hasn’t shown much of his best since winning the World Championship in May 2023, but reminded everyone how brilliant a player he is at the 2024 Riyadh Season Championship in Saudi Arabia, where he reached the final. The event was won by Mark Allen.

The event was played from December,18 to December, 20. Only the top ten ranked players were invited.This means that, from Grove, only Mark Selby, Ding Junhui and Luca Brecel took part.
All the detailed results are available on snooker.org.

Ding had to play a local qualifier in his first match. He beat him by 4-0. He then played Shaun Murphy, and beat him by 4-0, before losing in the quater-finals, by 4-0, to Ronnie O’Sullivan, the defending champion.

Mark Selby played Mark Allen in the Quarter-finals where he was seeded; It was his first match in the event and lost 4-2 to the eventual champion.

Luca Brecel entered the event in round 2. In his first match he beat Zhang Anda by 4-0. His quarter-final match wasn’t so easy but he won it: he beat Kyren Wilson, the reigning World Champion, by 4-3. Next for Luca was an semi-final encounter with Mark Williams. He beat the Welsh legend by 4-2.

In the final, Luca faced the in-form Mark Allen and was beaten by 5-1. Despite the setback, Luca was positive after the match. He said: “I made a few mistakes but Mark is really tough to play against. Overall I feel I’m getting better and I’m really looking forward to next year.”