Venue Barbican Centre Country England | City York Format Ranking event | |
Dates 24 November–6 December 2015 Organisation(s) World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association | ||
The 2015 Betway UK Championship was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 24 November and 6 December 2015 at the Barbican Centre in York, England. It was the fourth ranking event of the 2015/2016 season.
Contents
The 2014 champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, who had not played in professional competition since April, decided not to defend his title. He made his debut as a pundit during the tournament, providing in-studio expert analysis for Eurosport alongside Jimmy White.
On the opening day of the tournament, amateur player Adam Duffy defeated world number 9 and two-time UK Champion Ding Junhui 6–2, a result that was described as "one of the biggest upsets in UK Championship history". In the sixth frame of his third-round match against Neil Robertson, Thailand's Thepchaiya Un-Nooh came close to achieving his first maximum break in professional competition, but missed the final black off the spot.
The final between Australia's Neil Robertson and China's Liang Wenbo marked the first time that a British player did not compete in the UK Championship final. In the sixth frame, Robertson made the 115th official maximum break in professional competition, and the first 147 break ever attained in a Triple Crown snooker final, for which he earned £44,000 (a rolling prize of £40,000 for a 147 break, plus the tournament's £4,000 highest break prize). It was the fourth time in a row, that a maximum was made in a UK Championship. Robertson went on to defeat Liang 10–5 to claim his second UK Championship title, and the 11th ranking title of his career.
A record 104 centuries were made during the tournament, including nine from Robertson and eight from Liang.
Prize fund
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
The "rolling 147 prize" for a maximum break stands at £40,000 (8 ranking events since it was last won, £5,000 added for each ranking event)