US Snooker Star Achieves Life Dream in 2022…

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THE United States has its first player to join the World Professional Snooker Tour as Ahmed Aly takes up a card for two years from next year.

An American player has qualified to compete as a professional on the World Snooker Tour, as New York City’s Ahmed Aly Elsayed (pictured) has won the Open Event of the 2022 Pan American Snooker Championships at The Corner Bank in Toronto, Canada. https://t.co/8E3v3DD0sT

— United States Snooker Association (@SnookerUSA) October 30, 2022

Aly, who has played at the World Seniors at the Crucible was the winner of this year’s Pan American National Snooker Championships and proudly takes up his seat in the World’s elite 128 players on the circuit.

The 42-year-old has won a staggering 7 National Amateur Championships and the six-times former United States National Snooker Champion scored a 5-1 win over home player Amar Sadeg in the final, to earn that coveted two-year World Snooker Tour player status which will start from the 2023-24 season commencing from June of next year.

After the disappointment of losing in the final of the Seniors Event of the Pan American Snooker Championship and failing in the defense of his title, Aly came back in the Open Event even stronger and in the final put on one of his finest ever performances in an international snooker event.

Aly is not the very first United States player to have competed on the tour though.

Aly will not be the first American player to play in professional World Snooker Tour events, as in the 1980s both Steve Mizerak and Jim Rempe, who were at the time huge stars in the world of pool, competed in several tournaments including qualifying for the World Championship.

He was, however, the first American competitor to play snooker at the sport’s spiritual home, the Crucible in Sheffield, England, when he competed in this year’s World Seniors Snooker Championship back in May.

As the World Snooker tour continues on its journey and goes global, snooker in the United States, more famous for its 9 Ball pool than snooker, shows that there are players slowly coming through and there are a range of players breaking through from a range of different countries across the globe.

In the amateur game with the new Snooker Legends 900 event, there have been competitors who have traveled all the way from the likes of Canada, once a hotbed of snooker, to compete.

Canada’s scene is slowly growing again as we saw Vito Puopolo compete against local Woking star from the UK Jasmine Bolsover! That’s how diverse snooker is becoming both at the top and the middle, and the bottom.

lan Morris, the Executive Director of the United States Snooker Association, said: “This is an amazing result for snooker in the United States, and I am absolutely thrilled for Ahmed! He has worked so hard for this and I hope he enjoys and relishes every moment.

“Now we have seen what they can achieve by snooker players in the United States, I hope this inspires more people to play this great sport and aim to emulate exactly what Ahmed has done.”

In the last years, snooker fans have seen the likes of Iranian players such as Hossein Vafaei, and Soheil Vahedi, compete on the WST, and Vafaei won his first ranking title in the Snooker Shootout.

Estonia’s Andres Petrov, who was interviewed a while back on SnookerZone, when he became the first Estonian to join the WST, proudly won his first match as a pro in the last weeks.

Snooker USA website added: “Aly has always been a player who is never shy to show his emotions, and he punched the air and shouted out his delight to claim the frame and match and achieve his snooker life’s dream to play on the World Snooker Tour.

Earlier this year, the US held the first Women’s snooker US Open, sponsored by global tech giant Microsoft hosted at Ox Billiards in Seattle.