Last 10 days saw three sets of qualifiers played in Preston. The first set was to qualify for the Indian Open. Jack Lisowski and Luca Brecel won their qualifying match, whilst Oliver Lines lost to Jan Preece and Neil Robertson withdrew. Judd had not entered. Next came the qualifiers for the European Masters. Judd, being the defending champion, has his match held over to the venue, in Lommel, Belgium. Luca as well has his match held over, being Belgium’s n°1 player. Jack, Neil and Oliver all won their last 128 …

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

The new season started three days ago with the Riga masters 2017 qualifiers. Neil Robertson is the defending champion and, as such, his first match is held over to the venue. Judd decided to sit this one out. All three remaining Grove players won their qualifying match and will join Neil in Riga. They certainly weren’t handed an easy season opener. Jack beat Mark Allen by 4-3 from 2-0 and 3-1 down. Luca got the better of Shaun Murphy: he won by 4-2. Oliver Lines faced Yuan Sijun and prevailed …

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 …

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.

The Welsh Open 2017 was held in Cardiff, Wales, from February 13 to 19, 2017.
It was a tournament full of shocks with all but 6 of the top 25 surviving the last 32, and only 3 of the top 30 making it to the QF. Yet it was Judd Trump v Stuart Bingham in the Final, and it was Stuart who came out the winner by 9-8 . The Ray Reardon Trophy was presented by the six times World Champion and Welsh Legend himself.