BELGIUM'S Luca Brecel has racked his first career snooker147 in Coventry at the Ricoh Arena in the Championship League. Brecel, who has been struggling with form of late made the perfect 36 pots against four-time World Champion John Higgins. 147's have gone under the radar this season as last season there were a record number of 13. This season, Brecel follows Martin Gould, Liang Wenbo who made a 147 in the English Open, as well as Cao Yupeng and Kyren Wilson who made one in the International Championship. Maximums strangely enough seem to happen a lot in the Championship League as Mark Davis made two last season in the same non-ranking tournament.
It comes as players prepare for the penultimate ranking event before the World Championship, the China Open next month.
Key maximums
Brecel, is one of 46 players to have racked one 147 in the history of the game in the modern era. Steve Davis made the first televised 147 at the 1982 Lada Classic. Selby compiled the 100th 147 at the UK Championship and Brecel's latest addition is the 136th official maximum in the game. Ronnie O'Sullivan, who has just won his fifth ranking title of the season at the Ladbrokes Players Championship, holds the record of 13 career maximums.
How a Snooker 147 is made
A maximum consists of potting 15 reds with 15 blacks and all the colours in sequence, which consists of 36 perfect pots.
Ronnie O'Sullivan has made the fastest maximum in Snooker history of five mins and 20 seconds, Maximum prize money ranges now because of the "rolling prize" sequence now in snooker meaning that if a 147 is not made in a ranking tournament, the prize money rolls over.
In the ranking event for the China Open, the prize for a perfect break stands at £35,000.
Brecel, apparently gets just £500 for the Championship League highest break in Groups 1 - 7. In the winner's group of the Championship League, the highest break increases by £500 to £1000.
How many 146s have been made?
146 breaks are quite rare in snooker, but there's been according to the excellent stats site CueTracker, 19 146 breaks with Ronnie O'Sullivan making the most with three.
Masters Champion Mark Allen and Stephen Hendry have two 146s. In fact, 7 of the 15 players to have made the rare 146 have been World Champions.
The Championship League concludes this week with the winner also with a great chance to qualify for the Champion of Champions later on in the year. The League is in the second section of qualifying events that enable a player to go to the Ricoh later on as a Champion.
