The Challenge Tour 2018/2019 was a series of snooker tournaments that took place during the 2018–19 season.
It was a second-tier tour for players not on the main World Snooker Tour.
The top two players in the final rankings earned a two-year card to the World Snooker Tour for 2019–20.
Brandon Sargeant was certain of his place in the top two even before the final event.
Prior to the draw for the final event, Sargeant led the rankings and only David Grace and Mitchell Mann could catch him.
Sargeant could only drop to third if both Grace and Mann reached the final.
However, when Grace and Mann were drawn in the same half of the draw, Sargeant was guaranteed his place in the top two.
Grace guaranteed his place in the top two after his two nearest challengers, Mann and David Lilley, both lost on the first day of the final event.
After the season had been finished, additional places became available on the main tour for 2019/2020 season and it was decided that an extra tour place would be given to the third placed player on the ranking list, Mitchell Mann.
Format
Each event had a maximum field of 64.
The leading 64 players in the 2018 Q School Order of Merit, excluding the 12 who qualified for the main tour, were automatically eligible to play.
If some of these did not enter, eight wildcards became eligible and if there are still less than 64 entries, players outside the top-64 in the Q School Order of Merit could enter.
All matches were over five frames.
The winner of each event received prize money of £2,000 out of a total of £10,000.
The runner-up received £1,000, semi-finalists £700, quarter-finalists £500, last-16 losers £200 and last-32 losers £125.
Schedule
Source:
The event at Riga was planned for two days, but with only 25 entries, it was played in a single day.
Eligible players
The leading 64 players in the 2018 Q School Order of Merit, excluding the 12 who qualified for the main tour, were automatically eligible to play:
Farakh Ajaib
Simon Bedford
James Cahill
Greg Casey
Shane Castle
Jamie Cope
David Craggs
Jeff Cundy
Jamie Curtis-Barrett
Matthew Day
Lee Dae-gyu
Peter Devlin
Himanshu Dinesh Jain
Adam Duffy
Adam Edge
Dylan Emery
Leo Fernandez
John Foster
Felix Frede
David Grace
Brandon Hall
Steven Hallworth
Ben Hancorn
Hu Hao
Kristján Helgason
Andy Hicks
Anthony Jeffers
Liu Jiaming
Kuldesh Johal
Michael Judge
Ning Kang
David Lilley
Callum Lloyd
Sean Maddocks
Mitchell Mann
Jamie McArdle
Geng Mingqi
Jake Nicholson
Heikki Niva
Brian Ochoiski
Phil O'Kane
Jamie O'Neill
Jackson Page
Fraser Patrick
Barry Pinches
Haydon Pinhey
Andreas Ploner
Dechawat Poomjaeng
Laxman Rawat
Chae Ross
Brandon Sargeant
Luke Simmonds
Andrew Smith
Ma Tingpeng
Lucky Vatnani
Joel Walker
Charlie Walters
Patrick Whelan
Sydney Wilson
Fang Xiongman
Wang Yuchen
Long Zehuang
Wang Zepeng
Chen Zhe
Rankings
The leaders in the rankings were:
Source:
Players in the qualifying places are shown in green.
Initially two qualifying places were available but a third place was allocated after the end of the season.
References
