The year began, as always, with the prestigious Masters tournament at the Wembley Arena in London. Defending champion was Mark Selby who went all the way to the final only to be defeated by Ronnie O’Sullivan, thereby taking his fourth Masters title.

O’Sullivan did have a great tournament, making eight century breaks despite having smashed his cue a few days before the tournament began.

The next tournament was the Welsh Open where, again, the defending champion was Selby. The tournament was however won by Ali Carter who took his first ranking title, and then the players travelled to Beijing for the China Open brought a final between John Higgins and Peter Ebdon that ended 10-8 in favour of Ebdon.

The World Championship was a dramatic one even before the main event got underway. First of all Ken Doherty and Matthew Stevens failed to qualify for the tournament for the first time in 16 and 11 years, respectively. Doherty was so disappointed he actually considered retirement. Instead we saw four debutants at the Crucible Theatre – Rory McLeod, Andrew Higginson, Ricky Walden and Martin Gould. Young Mark Allen stunned the snooker world when he beat O’Sullivan in the second round and went all the way to the semi-finals.

 Stephen Hendry made the ninth maximum break of his career in his quarter-final against Shaun Murphy, but lost the match. The final was then played between Murphy and John Higgins, both former world champions. Something remarkable about the final was the fact that it was refereed by a woman, Michaela Tabb, for the first time in the history of the tournament. Higgins became world champion for the second time and on top of everything celebrated his 1000th frame at the Crucible.  

When the next season started in September, the time had come for the players to go to China yet again to play in the Shanghai Masters. Local player Liang Wenbo surprised everyone when he reached the final, beating Ebdon, Carter, Ricky Walden and Murphy on the way. But the local hero found O’Sullivan too much to handle in the final.

There was a lot of talk about Chinese players yet again in the next tournament, the Grand Prix. For the first time in the history of the tournament the final was played between two non-British players, Chinese Ding Junhui and Australian Neil Robertson. This was also the second final in a ranking tournament between two players outside of the UK, which Robertson won 9-4 .

In the Premier League, Murphy put an end to O’Sullivan’s five-year winning streak, defeating him 7-3 in the final.

Away from the table 2009 was also the year when WPBSA chairman Sir Rodney Walker was forced to resign in favour of Barry Hearn, who showed interest in the position right before the AGM was held. This was most likely the reason why Walker wasn’t re-elected. The snooker world is quite anxious to see what Hearn can do for the sport next year.

In December the second biggest tournament, the UK Championship was held as usual, this year in Telford. British pie brand Pukka Pies sponsored the event for the first time. Veteran Jimmy  White gave up his spot to participate in the television reality show, I’m a Celebrity… Get me out of here! and had to relocate to the jungle for a couple of weeks. The final was played between Higgins and Ding and was quite a tough one. Ding eventually took his second UK title and besides the £100,000 in prize money he received his weight in pies.

The snooker year of 2009 was a quite eventful one and we are of course already looking forward to next year, starting off with the Masters tournament.