World Cup (snooker)

World Cup

Tournament information
Location	Wuxi
Country	China
Established	1979
Organisation(s)	World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
Format	Non-Ranking team event
Total prize fund	$800,000
Current champion	Scotland John Higgins Stephen Maguire

The World Cup is an invitational team snooker tournament created by Mike Watterson. The annual contests featured teams of three (two since 2011) players representing their country against other such teams. Steve Davis has won the event more times than any other player, with four titles for England.

The event began in 1979 as the World Challenge Cup with the sponsorship of State Express. It was held at the Haden Hill Leisure Centre, Birmingham, with six teams participating: England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Canada, Australia and Rest of the World. The teams were broken into two round-robin groups and the matches were best of 15 frames. The top teams in the groups met in the final. In 1980 the tournament moved to the New London Theatre and the Northern Ireland team was replaced by an All-Ireland team.^[1]

The event was renamed to the World Team Classic in 1981 and moved to the Hexagon Theatre in Reading. The matches were reduced to best of seven and the top two teams from the groups advanced to the semi-finals. This time seven teams competed. Team Rest of the World were replaced by Team Scotland and instead of an All-Ireland team both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland fielded teams. After the 1983 event State Express ended their sponsorship of the event and the tournament's place in the snooker calendar was taken by the Grand Prix.^[1]

The event was moved to spring for the 1984/1985 season and the event was renamed the World Cup. It was held at the International, Bournemouth. The tournament also became a knock-out contest and featured eight teams. Ireland and Northern Ireland fielded a combined team, known as All-Ireland, the Rest of the World team returned and the defending champions, England, had two teams. The event was terminated after the 1990 event.^[1]

The event was briefly revived for 1996 and it was held at the Amari Watergate Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. There were many entries and qualification was held. The 20 qualified teams were split into four groups of five and the top two teams of the groups advanced to the quarter-finals.^[1]

On 22 March 2011 it was revealed that the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association planned to revive the event with the sponsorship of PTT and EGAT. It was held between 11 and 17 July at the Bangkok Convention Centre, Bangkok and twenty two-men teams participated at the tournament.^[2][3]

^[1]

Year	Winners		Runners-up		Final score	Host city	Season
	Team	Players	Team	Players
World Challenge Cup (team event)
1979	Wales	Ray Reardon Terry Griffiths Doug Mountjoy	England	Fred Davis John Spencer Graham Miles	14–3	Birmingham	1979/80
1980	Wales	Ray Reardon Terry Griffiths Doug Mountjoy	Canada	Cliff Thorburn Kirk Stevens Bill Werbeniuk	8–5	London	1980/81
World Team Classic (team event)
1981[4]	England	Steve Davis John Spencer David Taylor	Wales	Ray Reardon Terry Griffiths Doug Mountjoy	4–3	Reading	1981/82
1982[5]	Canada	Cliff Thorburn Kirk Stevens Bill Werbeniuk	England	Steve Davis Tony Knowles Jimmy White	4–2	Reading	1982/83
1983[6]	England	Steve Davis Tony Knowles Tony Meo	Wales	Ray Reardon Terry Griffiths Doug Mountjoy	4–2	Reading	1983/84
World Cup (team event)
1985[7]	All-Ireland	Alex Higgins Dennis Taylor Eugene Hughes	England A	Steve Davis Tony Knowles Tony Meo	9–7	Bournemouth	1984/85
1986[8]	Ireland A	Alex Higgins Dennis Taylor Eugene Hughes	Canada	Cliff Thorburn Kirk Stevens Bill Werbeniuk	9–7	Bournemouth	1985/86
1987[8]	Ireland A	Alex Higgins Dennis Taylor Eugene Hughes	Canada	Cliff Thorburn Kirk Stevens Bill Werbeniuk	9–2	Bournemouth	1986/87
1988[9]	England	Steve Davis Jimmy White Neal Foulds	Australia	Eddie Charlton John Campbell Warren King	9–7	Bournemouth	1987/88
1989[8]	England	Steve Davis Jimmy White Neal Foulds	Rest of the World	Silvino Francisco Dene O'Kane Tony Drago	9–8	Bournemouth	1988/89
1990[8]	Canada	Cliff Thorburn Alain Robidoux Bob Chaperon	Northern Ireland	Alex Higgins Dennis Taylor Tommy Murphy	9–5	Bournemouth	1989/90
1996[10]	Scotland	Stephen Hendry John Higgins Alan McManus	Republic of Ireland	Ken Doherty Fergal O'Brien Stephen Murphy	10–7	Bangkok	1996/97
2011[3]	China	Ding Junhui Liang Wenbo	Northern Ireland	Mark Allen Gerard Greene	4–2	Bangkok	2011/12
2015[11]	China B	Yan Bingtao Zhou Yuelong	Scotland	John Higgins Stephen Maguire	4–1	Wuxi	2015/16
2017[12]	China A	Ding Junhui Liang Wenbo	England	Judd Trump Barry Hawkins	4–3	Wuxi	2017/18
2019	Scotland	John Higgins Stephen Maguire	China B	Zhou Yuelong Liang Wenbo	4–0	Wuxi	2019/20

• Nations Cup (snooker)