The World Cup, a team event, is held every two years, and was held this time in Wuxi, China, Ding Junhui’s home town, from July 3 to July 9, 2017. Grove had three players involved, representing three different nations: Neil for Australia, Luca for Belgium, and Judd for England. England, Judd and Barry Hawkins made it to the Final but lost in the deciding frame to the China A team, Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo. This is the second World Cup title for Ding and Liang and the third …

The Riga Master 2017 was played in Riga Arena, Riga, Latvia, over 3 days, from June 23 to 25, 2017. The tournament was won by Ryan Day and this was Ryan’s first title. Neil was the defending champion, but, alas, his defence was short lived. He did win his last 128 held-oiver match, but lost in the first round proper to German rookie Lukas Kleckers. Luca and Oliver reached the last 32, whilst Jack played well overall, beating Lukas Kleckers in the last 32 and reached the last 16 where …

The players had to win one match to qualify for the China Championship 2017, to be played mid August, in China. This qualifying round was played in Preston from 3 to 6 June 2017. All Grove players were involved, and all of them except Jack won their match and are China bound. All detailed results can be found on Cuetracker as usual

Judd and Luca were yesterday, 13 May 2017, in Belgium, at Luca Brecel Snooker Academy to play an exhibition in support of Kika, a charity that supports children with cancer and their families since 2002. It was a great night: Luca won the exhibition match, playing very well indeed. Grove has a long history of supporting Kika since top referee Jan Verhaas and snooker blogger Annet Van Riel organised the first “Kika” snooker event in the Netherlands back in 2012; at the time Judd and Ronnie O’Sullivan had offered signed …

Judd, Luca and Oli were involved in an exhibition, yesterday evening in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Judd won over Ronnie O’Sullivan by 5-3 and Oliver Lines beat Luca by 3-1. The event was attended by a 1500+ enthusiast audience. After the exhibition, Judd expressed his appreciation for the knowledgeable Slovenian crowd and vowed to return to Ljubljana, with Ronnie, soon.

It wasn’t a great Championship for the Grove, as none of the players went past the last 16 in the biggest event of the season.
It actually started on April 5, 2017, in Ponds Forge, with all Grove players, except Neil and Judd who were seeded, needing to win three matches to reach the television stages at the Crucible. Only Luca Brecel managed that, with Li Hang and Yu Delu coming close.
The main event started on April 15. Judd arrived at the Crucible as pre-tournament favorite but went out in the …

The tournament was held in Beijing from March 27 to April 2, 2017 and was won by Mark Selby. Judd came to Beijing as the defending champion and managed to reach the quarter finals, where he lost to young promising Iranian prospect Hossein Vafaei. In the previous round, against Tian Pengfei, he had made his third competitive 147, and the first on television. Until then the highest break of the tournament was the 140 scored by Zhang Anda in the only frame he won …

Judd won the Players Championship 2017, beating Marco Fu by 10-7 in the final. The event, featuring only the 16 best players on the one year list, was played in Venue Cymru, Llandudno from 6 to 12 March 2017. This was Judd’s 5th final of this season and his second ranking title. This victory also propels him to n°2 in the rankings. Neil was the only other Grove player in the tournament. He lost to Ali Carter in the QF.

Judd reached yet another final yesterday evening in Gibraltar but eventually lost to Shaun Murphy by 4-2 despite dominating the early stages of the match. Judd had beaten Ryan Day in the semi finals, “avenging” his fellow Grove team mates: indeed Ryan had got the better of Neil Robertson in the quarter finals and was also responsible for the demise of Luca Brecel in the last 32.

Judd bounced back in style from the disappointment of losing in the Welsh Open Final by winning the Championship League Snooker 2017 Group 5 yesterday evening. Having to play again less than 24 hours after a final defeat isn’t easy. To do it and win ALL 8 matches you are involved with over two days is some feat and it’s exactly what Judd did. He beat Mark Williams by 3-0 in the Group 5 Final to book his place in the Winners Group to be played later in March.
Watch the …