Gary Wilson

Thanks to these performances, Wilson finished 24th on the Order of Merit to qualify for the Finals, where he was whitewashed 4–0 by Fu.

Wilson's season came to a disappointing end as he was beaten 10–4 by James Cahill in the opening round of World Championship qualifying.

However, he had made enough money during the year to give up his taxi driver job and concentrate on playing snooker full-time in the future.

Gary Wilson (born 11 August 1985) is an English professional snooker player from Wallsend in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear.

In 2003, Wilson made his international debut at the European U-19's Championship in Latvia.

After showing promise from a young age, Wilson won the IBSF World U-21 Championship before turning professional in 2004.

The same year he started his professional career by playing Challenge Tour, the second-level professional tour at the time, and won the fourth event in 2004 to finish fourth in the rankings and secure his place on the main tour for 2004–05 season.

Wilson's biggest achievement that year, however, was the victory at the World Under-21 Snooker Championship in Ireland.

Having won all seven of his round robin matches while dropping only two frames, he went all the way to the final, defeating the likes of Pankaj Advani, Aditya Mehta and Liang Wenbo.

In the final Wilson saw off Kobkit Palajin with breaks of 142 and 135 to win 11–5.

In his debut season Wilson reached the last 48 of the Irish Masters and last 64 of the China Open.

These results were just enough to ensure that he would remain on tour for another year.

The next season, Wilson reached the last 64 stage twice, but the rest of his performances were unsuccessful, and following defeat to James Tatton in the World Championship qualifying, he fell off the tour.

He dropped off the tour in 2006, however, and did not regain his professional status until 2013.

Following the introduction of the Q School, Wilson again came close to winning a tour card, reaching the fourth round twice in 2011 and once in 2012.

During the 2011–12 season Wilson entered a number of PTC events, defeating the likes of Peter Ebdon and Marco Fu, and reaching the last 32 twice.

The next season was even better, as he performed consistently and reached the last 16 of Scottish Open; as a result he finished third among the amateur players on the Order of Merit, and finally regained his tour place after seven years.

Wilson said, "I knew if I went quite far in that last event I would be able to turn professional off that, so losing the world amateur final did not end my dreams".

Wilson had one of the strongest starts to the season among the new players on tour.

In the first tournament, the Wuxi Classic, he defeated James Wattana to qualify for his second ever venue appearance; there he would lose in a deciding frame to David Morris.

After failing to qualify for both the Australian Open and the Shanghai Masters, Wilson had his best result to date at the inaugural Indian Open, defeating Jimmy White, Dominic Dale and Marco Fu on the way to the last 16, where he lost again in the deciding frame, this time to Michael White.

Following his first round defeat at the International Championship to Wattana, Wilson went on to reach the last 32 of both the UK Championship and the German Masters.

During the qualifying match for the latter tournament against Ricky Walden in December, Wilson made his first maximum break in professional competition.

He also performed successfully at the European Tour events, winning his first round matches at every tournament.

The highlight was his first ever semi-final at the Rotterdam Open where he was leading eventual tournament winner Mark Williams 3–1 but lost 4–3.

During his second period as an amateur, Wilson won the English Amateur Championship in 2012 and reached the final of the World Amateur Championship the same year.

Noted for his cue ball control and break-building ability, Wilson has won three ranking titles, the Scottish Open in 2022 and 2023, and the 2024 Welsh Open.

He also took part in the 2012 IBSF World Championship in Bulgaria, having finished top of the English amateur rankings.

He reached the final but lost 8–10 to Muhammad Asif.

In 2013 Wilson commented: "At the end of it, when you looked at the rankings it was only by one match and I was gutted. The thing is, at the time, and this is not an excuse, the game was nowhere near as popular as now. It was going through a really bad patch and there were only six tournaments in all compared to now when there are 20–25 tournaments per season. It meant if you had two bad tournaments and you were not doing too well you did not have much time to recover. It is so different now."

Wilson was to spend the next four years attempting to regain his tour place via the PIOS tour, having come close to finishing inside the top 8 on several occasions.

He was forced to start working as a taxi driver at the time to make a living.

Wilson qualified for the 2014 Wuxi Classic, the opening ranking event of the season, where he lost 5–3 to Alan McManus in the first round.

He couldn't regain his momentum from last year as he failed to progress beyond the last 64 stage of any tournament in the first half of the season.

He was also runner-up at the 2015 China Open and the 2021 British Open, as well as reaching the semi-final of the 2019 World Championship as a qualifier.

Wilson started playing snooker aged three and soon started showing promise.

At the age of 8 he had already been put into a team performing in the local league, despite some clubs refusing to allow a child to play.

Aged 9, he made his first century, and appeared for the first time at the BBC1's snooker game show series Junior Big Break: Stars of the Future (he would make two more appearances on the show).

He played exhibition matches with John Parrott and Willie Thorne, and defeated Jimmy White and Ronnie O'Sullivan in level matches.

Wilson went on to win a number of national titles, including the UK Under-18 championship twice, and was widely regarded as one of the most promising junior players in the country.