Jim Wych

Jim Wych
birthday	January 11, 1955
place of birth	Calgary
nationality	Canada
professional	1979-1996
Prize money	£ 152,028
Highest break	136
Century Breaks	13
Main tour successes
World championships	-
Ranking tournament victories	-
Minor tournament victories	-
World rankings
Highest WRL place	17 (1979-1982)

Jim Wych (born January 11, 1955 in Calgary ; actually James Allen Wych ) is a Canadian snooker player and sports commentator. Between 1979 and 1996 he was active as a player on the professional tour for 17 years . In 1990 he also began as a commentator on snooker and billiards events on television.

Career

Beginnings and early years

Jim Wych first showed his talent at the 1977 Canadian Open , a professional invitation tournament, where he was ranked -4 in the world . Dennis Taylor delivered a tough fight and was only just defeated 8: 9. His professional career began at the age of 24 after winning the Canadian Championship . In the 1979/80 season he first played only the tournaments in Canada. At the Canadian Open he reached the quarter-finals after defeating Tony Meo . At the Canadian professional championship he defeated Paul Thornley and Kirk Stevens and was defeated in the final by Cliff Thorburn 6: 9. He went to England only for the World Cup and after winning over John Bear and Rex Williams he qualified for the main tournament. In the Crucible Theater he won against ex-world champion John Pulman and then against Dennis Taylor, who was now number 2 in the world rankings. In his first match over three sessions he won a game that was evenly balanced up to 10:10 with 13:10. He was the first non-British new professional to make it into the quarter-finals of the World Cup. There he lost to his compatriot Cliff Thorburn 6:13, who then became the first Canadian to become world champion. Since the World Cup was the only tournament based on which a ranking of the players was determined at the time, he began his professional career in 17th place.

The following year he also took part in the popular Pot Black tournament and made it to the final. Again Cliff Thorburn stopped him, who won the show event with 2-0 frames. At the World Cup, however, he was unable to win his opening match this year or the next and therefore fell back in the ranking. In the 1982/83 season the number of ranked tournaments was increased to 3. Therefore he took part in the International Open and the Professional Players Tournament and at least reached round 2. However, he canceled the World Cup and because the points from his quarter-finals fell out of the ranking, he could not stay in the top 32. In 1983/84, however, he only played the World Championship and although he made it into the Crucible for the second time in the bottom 32, the other results were missing to improve. In the following year he entered several ranking tournaments, but only entered the World Cup and only made it to round 2.

Years in the top 64 and retired

It was not until the 1985/86 season that he really tackled the professional tour. While he did not get past the second round in the first four tournaments, another career highlight followed at the British Open . For the second time after the World Cup, he reached the quarter-finals of a ranking tournament. He defeated Tony Knowles and John Parrott , among others , but then the world number one Steve Davis gave him no chance. At the World Cup , he missed the main tournament again, but still rose to 32nd place on the seeding list. In the same year he reached the final of the Canadian professional championship for the second time and again it was Cliff Thorburn who stood in the way of a victory: Wych lost 6-2. During the 1986/87 season he played 6 ranked tournaments, four times he came under the bottom 32, twice he lost the opening game. The following year he reached the bottom 32 three times and beat Joe Johnson and Stephen Hendry, two players from the top 5. The 1988/89 season he began with a round of 16 at the International Open . The third final at the Canadian professional championship followed, but also the third defeat, this time 4-8 against Alain Robidoux . Then there were some early defeats, but at the European Open he reached another quarter-finals. Over the years, he roughly held his position in the world rankings, even if he should no longer make it into the top 32.

In the 1989/90 season was followed by a slump. He qualified five times in the first half of the season for the last 64, then lost twice and had to cancel three times. Four more rejections followed in 1990. He even threatened to drop out of the top 64. However, he recovered the following season and after a moderate start he was back in the round of 16 at the Dubai Classic 1990 . At the European Open he came in the bottom 32 and at the World Cup he missed the Crucible entry by one lap. In 1991/92 he struggled again for the whole season and only won two games before the World Cup . In the most important tournament of the season, however, he made it into the main tournament for the fifth time with a 10-3 win over John Virgo and with victories over the top 16 players Dean Reynolds and Willie Thorne he made it into the World Cup for the second time. Quarter finals. Jimmy White had the upper hand there with 13: 9. He rose again to 40th place in the ranking before it finally went down. At the beginning of the 1992/93 season he reached the second round at the Dubai Classic and the round of 32 at the Welsh Open , but he finished the last three tournaments without a win. He couldn't make up for the points that were canceled in the two-year ranking. In the entire 1993/94 season he won only three games and the fact that he was once again among the last 32 at the International Open in 1995 hardly made up for the 5 defeats at the beginning, and in 1995 he did not make it into the top 64 for the first time the 1995/96 season he signed up for a few tournaments, but then no longer appeared for qualification. This meant that he was still ranked 262 in the following season, but in fact he had ended his professional career.

Profession and post-career

As early as 1990 Jim Wych had started commenting on snooker tournaments for the British broadcaster Sky Sports . From 1993 he also reported on other billiards tournaments in 9-ball and later in 8-ball . At the end of his professional career, he also withdrew from Great Britain and worked in reporting on pool billiards, mainly for North American broadcasters such as ESPN and Fox Sports .

In 1999 he had another success in amateur snooker: 20 years after his first national championship title, he was Canadian champion for the second time with a 6-4 win over Tom Finstad.

In addition to his work as a commentator, the Canadian is co-owner of a billiard hall and active as a promoter and organizer of billiards and snooker events. In 2016, for example, he was planning a revival of the world championship in 8-ball, which a Chinese organizer then joined.

successes

Ranking tournaments:

• Quarter-finals: World Championship ( 1980 , 1992 ), British Open (1986), European Open (1989)
• Round of 16: International Open (1988), Dubai Classic (1990, 1992)

Other professional tournaments:

• Finals: Canadian Professional Championship (1980, 1986, 1988; semi-finals 1985), Pot Black (1981)

Amateur tournaments:

• Canadian champion (1979, 1999)

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Profile of Jim Wych at CueTracker (as of February 9, 2018)
2. ↑ Player Profile: Jim Wych. (No longer available online.) Canadian Billiards & Snooker Association, archived from the original on February 10, 2018 ; accessed on February 9, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Top 10 Crucible Debuts. Pro Snooker Blog, April 15, 2009, accessed February 9, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Biography: Jim Wych bei Cogeco (2009) ( Memento from June 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
5. ^ Billiards Digest Awards. Billiards Digest, February 2017, accessed February 9, 2018 . 

Web links

• Jim Wych in the Snooker Database