Luca Brecel will be playing at the Champions of Champions next month despite his very lean spell on the table since winning the 2023 World Championship.
The Belgian Bullet became the Crucible king in style in May 2023 when he beat Mark Selby in the Sheffield final, but results have proved very hard to come by since then.
Brecel has been to one ranking quarter-final since he won the world title and his results have been so poor that his projected end of season ranking is currently 56.
There even remains the possibility that he could lose his professional status at the end of the season, which will happen if he falls outside of the top 64.
However, he still has the £500,000 he won at the Crucible on his ranking for now, riding high at number six in the world and that will get him into the Champion of Champions.
The event is billed as all the champions over the last year, but with players like Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump and Kyren Wilson all winning multiple tournaments, places in the event are then offered based on the world rankings.
There is just the International Championship left for a new winner to make it into the Champion of Champions so Brecel’s place is secured, with the the 29-year-old posting confirmation on Instagram.
He wrote: ‘Two big tournmaents to look forward to in November. This one and the UK Championships.’
The Champion of Champions is a non-ranking event so Brecel will not be able to boost his end of season ranking in Bolton next month, but he will be able to find some form and confidence with some wins or at least good performances.
He will not be at the International Championship in Nanjing after losing in qualifying, so the Champion of Champions will be his last event before the UK Championship starting on 23 November.
Already confirmed to have qualified for the Champion of Champions are O’Sullivan, Trump, Wilson, Mark Allen, Mark Selby, Mark Williams, Ali Carter, Gary Wilson, Neil Robertson, Xiao Guodong, Jak Jones, World Seniors champion Igor Figueiredo and World Women’s champion Bai Yulu.
With Brecel in the field, there are two spots left to claim after the International Championship concludes.
The Belgian Bullet’s preparation for Champion of Champions will be interesting to see after he took the unusual step of commuting from Mallorca for his matches at the Northern Ireland Open last week.
He won his opener but was beaten in his second match after returning from the Spanish island.
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