The 2024 winner reflects on the emotional backstory to Crucible triumph amid major health concerns for his family
“‘I still believed in myself but it was quite soul-destroying out there,” Kyren Wilson says in a back room at Barratts Snooker Club in Northampton. The world champion once worked here as a barman because he had lost his place on tour after his first season as a professional in 2011. He was still only 19 and he had little idea that an avalanche of adversity would engulf him in the years ahead.
Wilson begins the defence of his world title, with a first-round match against Lei Peifan, in the venerable Crucible in Sheffield on Saturday morning. But it seems fitting that we should meet here, in the unpromising surroundings which once defined Wilson’s life, as he describes his extraordinary world championship backstory.
Written by Donald McRae
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/apr/18/kyren-wilson-snooker-world-championship under the title “Kyren Wilson: ‘It’s not just me that’s world champion. It’s my whole family’”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
