Ben Mertens (born 13 October 2004) is a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

professional

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

player. He won the

World Open Under-16 Snooker Championships The World Open Under-16 Snooker Championships is a non-professional junior snooker tournament, held for the first time in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in October 2017. The event is endorsed by the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF). ...

in 2018.

Career

Ben Mertens is from

Wetteren Wetteren () is a municipality located in the Belgian province of East Flanders , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = Province of Belgium , image_flag = Flag of Oost-Vlaanderen.svg , fl ...

. When he was 12 years old, he reached the 2nd round of the

2017 EBSA European Under-18 Snooker Championship The 2017 EBSA European Under-18 Snooker Championship was an amateur snooker tournament that took place from 6 March to 8 March 2017 in Nicosia, Cyprus. It was the 2nd edition of the EBSA European Under-18 Snooker Championships. The tournament was ...

. At the

2018 EBSA European Under-18 Snooker Championship Eighteen or 18 may refer to: * 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19 * one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018 Film, television and entertainment * ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the sho ...

he got to the quarter-finals, where he lost to the later champion

Jackson Page Jackson Page (born 8 August 2001 in Ebbw Vale, Blaenau Gwent) is a Welsh professional snooker player. He is a former European U-21 champion and the former Under-18 World Snooker Champion and in 2017 also became the Under-18 European Snooker Ch ...

. He won the Belgian U18 championship in 2018. In August 2018 he played in a professional ranking tournament for the first time, and beat

Adam Stefanow Adam Stefanów (born 22 March 1994 in Nowa Sól, Lubuskie) is a Polish former professional snooker player. Stefanów lives in Sheffield, England. He received an Invitational Tour Card after finishing runner-up in the 2018 WSF Championship. His ...

in the first round of the

2018 Paul Hunter Classic The 2018 Paul Hunter Classic was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place in August 2018 at the Stadthalle in Fürth, Germany. It was the third ranking event of the 2018/2019 season. The tournament is named in honour of forme ...

. In October 2018, when he was thirteen years old, he won the

, becoming the first male Belgian snooker world champion (

Wendy Jans Wendy Jans (born 14 June 1983, in Bree, Belgium) is a Belgian professional snooker and pool player. She has won the IBSF World Snooker Championship for women seven times. She reached her first women's world final at the 2022 World Women's Snooke ...

is a multiple winner of the senior women's world championship). In January 2019, he defeated Michael White, then ranked #36 in the world, at a snooker tournament in

Bruges Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the countr ...

. At the 2019 Snooker Shoot-Out, a ranking tournament for which he got a wild card, he beat

James Wattana James Wattana (; born January 17, 1970, as วัฒนา ภู่โอบอ้อม ''Wattana Pu-Ob-Orm'', then renamed รัชพล ภู่โอบอ้อม ''Ratchapol Pu-Ob-Orm'' in 2003) is a Thai former professional snooker pl ...

in the first round. In March 2020 he lost in the semi-finals of the

EBSA European Under-21 Snooker Championships The EBSA European Under-21 Snooker Championships is the premier amateur junior snooker tournament in Europe. The event series is sanctioned by the European Billiards & Snooker Association. It took place first in 1997 and is held annually since the ...

to later champion Aaron Hill. In July 2020 he defeated James Cahill in the first round of the World Championship qualifiers, becoming the youngest player ever to win a match in the World Championships. This record was broken by Liam Davies, who was two days younger than Mertens when he won his first match at the

2022 World Snooker Championship The 2022 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2022 Betfred World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 16 April to 2 May 2022 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, the 46th conse ...

qualifiers. In June 2022 turned professional after winning the

and gained a two-year tour card for the

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

and 2023–24 snooker seasons.

Performance and rankings timeline

Career finals

Amateur finals: 4 (3 titles)

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mertens, Ben 2004 births People from Wetteren Belgian snooker players Living people Sportspeople from East Flanders 21st-century Belgian people