Mark Joyce

Mark Joyce

Mark Joyce at the 2011 Paul Hunter Classic
Born	August 11, 1983 (1983-08-11) (age 28)
Sport country	England
Professional	2006–present
Highest ranking	42 (5 months)
Current ranking	48
Career winnings	GB£7,175
Highest break	143 (2010 UK Championship)
Best ranking finish	Quarter-finals (2010 UK Championship)

Mark Joyce (born August 11, 1983) is an English professional snooker player who lives in Walsall. Joyce enjoyed an outstanding amateur career, winning the European Under-19 Championship in 2001, the English Open in 2005 and the English Amateur Championship in 2006, beating Martin O’Donnell 8–3 in the final. Joyce also finished fifth on the 2005/06 Pontin’s International Open Series, winning the second of eight events, to book a place on the professional circuit.

2006/07 season

Joyce had a very uneventful first season on the tour, failing to qualify for any of the major events. He ended the season losing in the penultimate qualifying round of the World Championship to Fergal O'Brien 10–4. He also recorded his highest break of 130 in professional play during the qualifiers. This would remain his highest break until the qualifying stages of the 2010 World Championship. He ended the season ranked 73rd.

2007/08 season

Joyce started the season with 2 wins in qualifying for the Shanghai Masters before narrowly losing 5–4 to veteran John Parrott in the penultimate qualifying round. The Grand Prix would be the first tournament that Joyce would qualify for after finishing 2nd in his qualifying group. However, he would go on to lose all 5 matches in the group stage of the tournament. After failing to qualify for the Northern Ireland Trophy, Joyce won 3 matches to reach the final qualifying round of the UK Championship before being ousted 9–2 by Ian McCulloch. The remainder of the season was fairly uneventful as he failed to qualify for the Malta Cup, Welsh Open and the China Open. He finished the season off by losing in the third qualifying round of the World Championship. His exploits in the season resulted in his ranking going up 14 places to number 59. This will mean he would have 1 less qualifying match to play in the following season.

2008/09 season

The season started with a 5–0 victory against Patrick Wallace and then a 5–0 defeat to Judd Trump in the first ranking event of the season, the Northern Ireland Trophy. He followed this up with a run to the final qualifying round of the Shanghai Masters in the next event. Another win and a defeat in the Grand Prix after being reverted back to a knockout competition and the same result in the Bahrain Championship. Joyce only recorded 1 win from the next three ranking tournaments, the UK Championship, the Welsh Open and the China Open. His best performance of the season was in the qualifying tournament for the Masters, where he reached final, only to lose 1-6 to Judd Trump. The season ended poorly for Joyce with a 10–6 defeat to Patrick Wallace in his first match of the World Championship qualifiers. Despite this, he ended the season up 2 places to number 57 in the rankings.

2009/10 season

Joyce's fourth season on the tour got off to a bad start with a 5–2 defeat to Joe Jogia in the qualifying for the Shanghai Masters. He followed this up with victories over Andrew Norman, Michael Judge and Barry Hawkins to qualify for the Grand Prix. He was drawn against the defending champion John Higgins and was defeated 5–1. The remainder of the season up to the World Championship was uneventful with only 2 wins in 3 ranking tournaments. In qualifying for the World Championship, he recorded a 139 break (his highest so far in professional snooker) against Jimmy Robertson in the 3rd qualifying round. He won this match 10–9 and then defeated Michael Judge 10–8 to set up a meeting with Jamie Cope for a place at The Crucible. Cope was to prove too strong for Joyce as he ran away a 10–5 winner.

2010/11 season

Despite starting from the first round of qualification, Joyce managed to qualify for the televised stages of the UK Championship for the first time in his career, beating six-time World Champion Steve Davis 9-2 in the final qualifying round. He reached the quarter-finals of a ranking tournament for the first time in his career by defeating Ali Carter 9-6 in the last 32 and Judd Trump 9-7 in the last 16. In quarter-finals, he lost 7-9 to Mark Williams.

References

• "Mark Joyce". WorldSnooker.com. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 2007–2010 [copyright date]. "" section. http://www.worldsnooker.com/page//0,,{{{id}}}.html.  Official WPBSA player profile.

External links

• Profile on Pro Snooker Blog
• Results & Statistics on CueTracker

Persondata
Name	Joyce, Mark
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Date of birth	August 11, 1983
Place of birth
Date of death
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