Top 10 moments of 2022/23 snooker season: No. 1 – Luca Brecel wins World Championship with heavy metal brand of snooker

Updated 01/07/2023 at 08:47 GMT

The 2022/23 snooker season was another remarkable campaign with a smorgasbord of unforgettable memories bewitching millions across the globe on Eurosport, the home of snooker. We pick 10 of the most memorable moments from the past 10 months. Today we reflect on Luca Brecel's remarkable world title triumph. Stream top snooker action live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com.

Brecel holds trophy aloft after making history in winning first world title

After the conclusion of another extraordinary snooker season, we pick 10 memorable moments from the 2022/23 campaign as captured by the Eurosport cameras. You can vote for your personal favourite when we reveal our final list of contenders.

No. 1 – Brecel's heavy metal snooker bewitches Crucible

Luca Brecel loves listening to hip-hop, but the new world champion's snooker game is very much of the heavy metal variety, the gegenpress of the green baize.

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While he emerges to the walk-on sounds of Insane in the Brain by Cypress Hill, the intensity of his crash, bang, wallop, all-out attacking style is more like Black Ball Sabbath, Motley Crue with cue in hand as he moves rapidly to the thunderous sound of his own beat.

The thin line between genius and insanity is perhaps never truer than finding the fine lines on a snooker table during the annual World Championship stress test.

Come on feel the noise inside the Crucible Theatre was all the rage in April and May with Brecel on the rampage leathering the back of the pockets with a unique, high-risk, high-reward strategy some would have suggested tantamount to sporting hara-kiri.

Who knew that the percentage shot was old hat?

'An extraordinary comeback' - More exhibition shots from Brecel

Fighting out of the town of Maasmechelen in Belgium, the first player from continental Europe to conquer the sport's most celebrated venue dispensed with the notion that you require a reliable safety strategy to succeed on the grandest stage.

Brecel even had time to pay homage to the origins of the saturated boom period when Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins – – revelled in copious amounts of booze and belligerence before, during and after combat.

Brecel – aptly dubbed 'The Belgian Bullet' who became a deadly silver bullet over 17 unplayable days in Sheffield – adhered to the old sporting mantra of "drink when you're winning" before upsetting tried and tested world champions Mark Williams and Ronnie O'Sullivan.

He sank a few more with a magnanimous Mark Selby – perhaps the ultimate match-player of the modern era – in the final aftermath of his riotous run to the sport's loftiest prize in a style previously prohibited in snooker's speakeasy.

It was a remarkable, trend-setting rise to the throne having failed to win a match at the intimate venue in five previous attempts.

His pedigree at the World Championship – he had also failed to qualify for the Crucible on six other occasions – nor his adventurous style of play hinted at such a spectacular flowering in spring.

Certainly obeying no law of logic previously seen over the other 46 years in the Steel City.

Brecel joined Terry Griffiths (1979), Joe Johnson (1986) and Shaun Murphy (2005) as the only men to have lifted the world title having never previously won a Crucible contest.

He eclipsed Ricky Walden (10-9), Williams (13-11) O'Sullivan (13-10), Si Jiahui (17-15) and Selby (18-15) to realise his lifetime ambitions at the age of only 28.

Brecel clinches 'sensational' maiden world title against Selby at Crucible

"After my record here, not winning a game after five attempts, I wasn’t expecting to win it any time soon," he said.

"To win it this year is absolutely amazing. It was the same thing that Joe Johnson did in 1986, never winning a match here and then winning it.

"It’s a dream come true and whatever happens now in my career, I can say I’m a world champion.

"I am only 28, with so much time left in my career. Hopefully, there are many more to follow."

Jimmy 'Whirlwind' White and Judd Trump – with his naughty snooker becoming a particular trademark selling point – in years gone by came closest to reaching the summit by throwing caution to the wind, but Brecel's energised ability to lay waste to his opponents by potting his way out of trouble had to be seen to be believed.

Brecel trailed O'Sullivan 10-6 in the quarter-finals, but blitzed the defending champion and snooker GOAT by claiming the final seven frames in only 79 minutes in a 13-10 win that resembled a mauling at the end.

His semi-final with the formidable Si Jiahui and his technically superior talents is probably ripe for a Crucible thesis, one for academia to pore over in future years as a sort of three-day, off-piste potting carnival when both men were content to go for broke apparently without a care for consequence.

It provided millions of viewers with an epic high-wire routine that made the era of 'Steady' Eddie Charlton resemble a relic of the woolly mammoth beyond the days of wine and roses when the lovable 'Big' Bill Werbeniuk lathered himself with pints of confidence in his Crucible chair.

Brecel trailed the 20-year-old Crucible debutant Si 14-5, but somehow mounted the biggest recovery in the televised era of the tournament, to come through 17-15 after winning 12 of the final 13 frames against an opponent who ran in four centuries and 10 breaks over 50. Yet still lost.

'Ridiculous' exhibition snooker from Brecel gets huge applause from crowd

Such are those fine, unforgiving margins of professional sport.

Brimming with self-belief in devouring even half-chances, Brecel led Selby from start to finish in the final, but was forced to fend off a trademark late rally from the four-time champion – who made a landmark 147 and can win any which way but loose when the mood takes him – as his lead was cut from 16-10 to a measly 16-15.

Brecel regained his gait with closing breaks of 51 and 112, his fifth century of the final, seeing him finalise the £500,000 first prize and the fabled old trophy first lifted by the 15-time world champion Joe Davis in 1927.

Davis and Brecel neatly bookend snooker's vast development over the past century, and the hectic modern mental demands of a game within a game.

Brecel has dispensed with the accepted norm in snooker that any player attempting to win the World Championship, the most challenging competition in any cue sport across the planet, must have a Plan B to fall back on.

“I love winning, but I don’t mind losing and that’s a dangerous combination to have," said Brecel. "I always play the same game, people say I don’t have a B game but I do, I just don’t use it."

When plan A isn't working, give them more of Plan A.

Brecel also remains the youngest player to appear at the Crucible. He lost 10-5 to Stephen Maguire in his World Championship debut aged 17 years and 45 days in 2012.

'Extraordinary shot!' - Brecel sinks 'one of the shots of the tournament'

He has matured, but his natural game is remarkably raw. Which provides wonderful audience engagement.

The major difference appearing to be that he misses less these days rather than become consumed by curbing his enthusiasm.

"He's a potting machine isn't he? He's one of the fastest players I've seen and he's fearless," said former UK champion Maguire back then.

He could easily have expressed the same sentiments 11 years later regarding Brecel, who is a young man playing a younger man's game.

How Luca solved Crucible conundrum

2012

Lost 10-5 to Stephen Maguire first round

2017

Lost 10-9 to Marco Fu first round

2018

Lost 10-6 to Ricky Walden first round

2019

Lost 10-9 to Gary Wilson first round

2022

Lost 10-5 to Noppon Saengkham first round

2023

Won 10-9 v Ricky Walden first round
Won 13-11 v Mark Williams second round
Won 13-10 v Ronnie O’Sullivan quarter-finals
Won 17-15 v Si Jiahui semi-finals
Won 18-15 v Mark Selby final

Luca Brecel crowned himself world snooker champion for the first time in his career in early May at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre.

Image credit: Eurosport

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Stream top snooker action live on discovery+, the Eurosport app and at eurosport.com

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