Shailesh "Joe" Jogia (born 13 November 1975) is an English retired professional

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in ...

player of Indian descent.

Early life

Born in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

, England in 1975, Jogia lived for a time in the

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For gov ...

town of Letchworth, before returning to live in Leicester.

Career

Jogia reached the last 32 of four ranking events, the first two being the 2004

Grand Prix Grand Prix ( , meaning ''Grand Prize''; plural Grands Prix), is a name sometimes used for competitions or sport events, alluding to the winner receiving a prize, trophy or honour Grand Prix or grand prix may refer to: Arts and entertainment ...

and

British Open The Open Championship, often referred to as The Open or the British Open, is the oldest golf tournament in the world, and one of the most prestigious. Founded in 1860, it was originally held annually at Prestwick Golf Club in Scotland. Later ...

, within a few weeks of each other. He won the

English Open The English Open was a professional golf tournament held in England. First played in 1988, it was an annual event on the European Tour until 2002. After several aborted attempts at reviving the tournament, it returned to the tour schedule in 20 ...

title in 1998, and has defeated players such as

Joe Swail Joe Swail (born 29 August 1969) is a Northern Irish former professional snooker player from Belfast. He retired in May 2019 after being relegated from the tour. He has reached ten major ranking semi-finals, including the 2000 and 2001 World ...

, Mark King and

Stuart Bingham Stuart Bingham (born 21 May 1976) is an English professional snooker player who is a former world and Masters champion. Bingham won the 1996 World Amateur Championship but enjoyed little sustained success in the early part of his professional ...

in his career. His highest in a ranking event is 137, in qualifying rounds of the 2009 Grand Prix, although he has also made a 147 maximum in pro-am play. He dropped off the pro Main Tour after the 2006–07 season. In 2008–09 he topped the pro-am

International Open Series The International Open Series (often referred to as Pontins International Open Series or PIOS for sponsorship purposes), was a series of snooker tournaments that ran from the 2001/02 season until the 2009/10 season. It was originally called the ...

to regain a place on the Main Tour, although this was a wildcard place as he was not a member of his national governing body at that time. He qualified for the last 32 of a ranking event for the first time in 6 years at the 2010 World Open, where he played

Liu Song Song, known as Liu Song (), Former Song (前宋) or Song of (the) Southern Dynasty (南朝宋) in historiography, was an imperial dynasty of China and the first of the four Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties period. ...

and lost 3–1. Jogia made it to the main stage of the

UK Championship The UK Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. It is one of snooker's prestigious Triple Crown events, along with the World Championship and the Masters. It is usually held at the Barbican Centre, York. Ronnie O'Sullivan ...

for the first time in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrates ...

by beating

Jamie Cope Jamie Cope (born 12 September 1985) is an English former professional snooker player. A finalist in two ranking tournaments, the 2006 Grand Prix and the 2007 China Open, Cope also reached the semi-finals of the 2011 Masters. He reached his h ...

6–3 in the final round of qualifying. He was drawn against world number 2, Mark Williams, and won two successive frames to tie the match at 4–4. Unfortunately, Jogia had a bad "" while well placed to win the next frame and would lose the match 6–4. Jogia had a good season in the minor-ranking Players Tour Championship series as he played in all 12 of the events, reaching the semi-finals in the first event, where he lost 2–4 to

Ronnie O'Sullivan Ronald Antonio O'Sullivan (born 5 December 1975) is an English professional snooker player who is the current world champion and world number one. Widely recognised as one of the most talented and accomplished players in the sport's history, ...

. He also had two last 16 finishes to be placed 28th on the PTC

Order of Merit The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by ...

, just out of the top 24 who qualified for the PTC Finals. Jogia only won one more match in qualifying after his UK Championship exploits and finished the season ranked world number 47. On 30 May 2012, it was announced by

World Snooker The World Snooker Tour (WST) is the main professional snooker tour, consisting of approximately 128 players competing on a circuit of up to 28 tournaments each season. The World Snooker Tour is administered by World Snooker Ltd, the commercial ar ...

that Jogia had been suspended from playing on the tour because of unusual betting patterns on his match against

Matthew Selt Matthew Selt (born 7 March 1985) is an English professional snooker player originally from Romford, east London and now living in Chelmsford, Essex. He qualified for the professional tour by finishing seventh on the Pontin's International Open ...

in the

Snooker Shoot-Out The Snooker Shoot Out is a professional ranking snooker tournament played under a variation of the standard rules. The 2017 event was the first time the tournament was staged as a ranking event. Hossein Vafaei is the current champion. History S ...

, which was due to take place on 28 January 2012. A high number of bets were placed on Jogia to lose the match, which he claimed was because of an injury to his knee and the assumption that he would be unable to play to an adequate standard. Jogia withdrew from the event the day before it started, but faced a formal hearing of the World Snooker Disciplinary Committee in July. At the hearing it was revealed that Jogia had been in repeated communication with two people who placed 19 bets on the match and that 11 of these bets had been placed before he sought medical attention regarding his knee injury. Jogia was banned from snooker until after the 2014 World Championship and fined £2,000 as a contribution to the cost of the investigation. On 7 January 2013, Jogia was removed from the snooker world rankings following ET 2012/13 – Event 6, after his

WPBSA The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) is the governing body of professional snooker and English billiards based in Bristol, England. It owns and publishes the official rules of the two sports and engages in promotion ...

membership was terminated.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jogia, Shailesh English snooker players 1975 births Living people Sportspeople from Leicester English people of Indian descent