Nick Metcalfe Snooker Column: There's no reason snooker's young stars can't win trophies... starting immediately

• Published before the English Open

The opening event of this 2025-26 snooker season, the Championship League, was won by 44-year-old Stephen Maguire. Terrific player of course, but you are forgiven if you thought "here we go again".

Ali Carter, at 46, reached the Shanghai Masters final soon after. The big money ranking event in Saudi Arabia last month saw a final between 49-year-old Ronnie O'Sullivan and 43-year-old Neil Robertson.

Go back to the the start of this year and Shaun Murphy – another forty something – won the Masters. Mark Selby, who is a year younger than Murphy, added the Welsh Open to his considerable collection. John Higgins was only weeks away from turning 50 when he won the World Open and Tour Championship.

Let me be clear, these are all fabulous stars of the game. It gives me great pleasure to watch all of them and I'm sure it's the same for you reading this.

Murphy produced some of the best snooker of last season in winning the Masters, while Selby's story has long been one of the most inspirational in all of sport. Higgins returning to winning ways after four years without a tournament success had a fairytale quality to it.

The standards O'Sullivan reached at times in Saudi – especially when he made two maximum breaks in his semi-final against Chris Wakelin – defied belief. Meanwhile, Robertson winning such a big event just 16 months after failing to qualify for the World Championship felt like proper redemption.

This isn't meant to be a slight at all on any of these players. They truly are treasured, and we've been lucky to have them in the sport. But surely we would now be better served overall by some clear signs of a changing of the guard?

It's only right to point out at this stage that two of the last three world champions stormed to Sheffield glory in their twenties.

But even they've been funny cases really. Luca Brecel, who is now 30, has shone only rarely in the two years since his 2023 Crucible victory, and due to health issues has hardly played at all so far this season.

As for Zhao Xintong's triumph in May, sadly that just didn't give us the moment of unalloyed joy we'd long craved for when finally witnessing a first Chinese world champion, because the 28-year-old had only just returned from a ban following snooker's biggest ever match-fixing scandal.

Frankly, the time is ripe and right for some of these sparkling teenagers and brilliant players in their early twenties to take centre stage.

That includes winning trophies by the way. Now that's a very easy thing for me to write while sitting here at my desk. These things clearly take a significant effort, especially with today's high standards and the sheer number of outstanding players around.

But let's remember too, young players can succeed in sport. Even in this one. It seems like we've been sucked into some kind of strange vortex where we've become conditioned to think that only experienced, battle-hardened competitors can pick up the trophies in snooker. We need to get out of that frankly.

There are some promising signs if you look around. Wu Yize is only 21, yet last season reached the English Open and Scottish Open finals. Aaron Hill, 23, often beats the sport's biggest hitters – just two weeks ago, he turned Kyren Wilson over at the Wuhan Open. Si Jiahui is also 23, yet seems to win matches at the Crucible for fun and has reached two ranking finals.

Actually, that reminds me, one of the things that sticks in my mind from the last World Championship is Masters champion Murphy saying on television that it's now time for Si to go a step further and collect a shiny pot or two. Someone else gets it then.

We've long concerned ourselves with the dearth of young UK talent coming through, and there's no question it is a major worry. Yet there are some green shoots of possible recovery out there.

Stan Moody is still only 18, yet his recent fine run to the quarter-finals in Wuhan included victory over Ding Junhui and a stunning 5-0 thrashing of Barry Hawkins. Liam Pullen, who has just turned 20, beat John Higgins in Xi'an Grand Prix qualifying last week.

Hill, Moody and Pullen have all been on the Talking Snooker podcast and they already talk the most confident of games. Particularly in Moody's case. He has designs on the very top of the game and doesn't mind telling you.

What might help us here is weening ourselves off all this talk of snooker looking for the new Luke Littler. Working in the news business, I'm well aware of the attractions of using the Littler name for headline and SEO purposes. But really, the guy is a total one-off. Littler reached the world darts final at 16. Sixteen!

Let's just leave the Warrington lad in a class of his own for now, shall we? I can name you two dozen sports off the top of my head that would kill for a Littler-type superstar, but these are once in a generation characters.

Cutting down on the Littler comparisons would be beneficial, but that doesn't mean we always need to play the "next" game.

They'll do the business "next" month. Or "next" year. Or maybe some time in the "next" five years.

Let's replace "next" with "now" in some of these cases. Yes, the sport moves in cycles – and this is a time when older players are thriving – but youngsters are still allowed to take it to the generation above and leave those serial winners with a bloody nose from time to time.

Winding the clock back, Steve Davis won four of his six world titles before he turned 30 in the 1980s. Stephen Hendry claimed six of his seven world crowns while still in his twenties in the 1990s.

Of course snooker players are better for building up experience. Many years, indeed decades, of hard graft and serious match play on tour will give you obvious advantages at tournaments.

But these young players I've already mentioned – and plenty of others too – are blessed with rare talents. Nobody can tell me they haven't got the capabilities to win tournaments, I just won't buy it. Fingers in the ears time.

Lei Peifan showed what is possible when he won the Scottish Open last season at the age of 21, and with a world ranking of 84. Now the stage is set for others to take up the mantle.

The English Open starts in Brentwood on Thursday, kicking off a mouthwatering run of events between now and Christmas. It would be nice to think that when we're hanging up the tinsel, we're reflecting on at least one of the tournament winners this season being a player born in this century.

I'm not even going to do the "no pressure" line for a joke. Maybe it's my inner Barry Hearn talking, but it's obvious there's pressure. That's sport. No sorry, that's work. Whatever we do for a living. You feel it. I feel it.

Yes, there's an upgrade in the case of those who ply their trade in snooker because they do their day job in the full glare of the media spotlight.

But please let's not talk ourselves into thinking young players can't deal with that pressure and tournament victories can't happen for the relative newcomers on tour, because they can.

I for one am hoping such successes are on the way too. Maybe even right away. Yes, that means starting in Brentwood. There's no time like the present.

Is Brentwood becoming for this sport in 2025?

"Just walk past the legs, bums and tums class and turn right at the vending machine."

If you ever needed a reminder that snooker isn't always the most glamorous sport, go to the Brentwood Centre for the English Open.

It's as cut price as they come, that place. Quite literally, from what I hear.

Look, it's functional. Perfectly functional I suppose. It's a well-supported event too. Essex folk love their snooker and the crowds tend to be decent throughout.

But is it becoming of snooker in 2025? Is it time we moved on from provincial leisure centres?

There is a clear and obvious problem for snooker organisers looking for places to host events in England, as so many tournaments are staged there.

But if you are coming to Brentwood this year, take a proper look around and ask yourself if the venue really feels like the best place to host the first big UK event of the season.

Despite my naysaying, I'll be attending. It's only a few stops on the train for me and I need my live snooker fix, having not been present at a tournament since Sheffield.

Don't eat all the sausage rolls before I get there please...