What can we expect as World Mixed Doubles returns to snooker calendar? Ronnie O’Sullivan emulates Steve Davis era

The World Doubles Championship used to be a regular part of the snooker circuit during the sport’s halcyon days of the 1980s when broadcast coverage of the sport reached saturation point on terrestrial television in the UK.

The event ran for six years between 1982 and 1987 with celebrated English duo Steve Davis – the six-time world champion – and his friend Tony Meo winning the title four times in 1982, 1983, 1985 and 1986.

The popular pairing of Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins and Jimmy ‘Whirlwind’ White emerged triumphant in 1984 before an emerging seven-time Crucible winner Stephen Hendry and former Masters finalist Mike Hallett combined to claim the final World Doubles Championship in 1987.

The competition was abandoned in its original format, but returned briefly as a Mixed Doubles event with Davis and Allison Fisher successful in Hamburg in 1991 with a 5-4 win against Hendry and Stacey Hillyard.

The doubles format has also been deployed alongside singles regularly in the World Cup in China with John Higgins and Stephen Maguire winning the 2019 tournament, its last staging, with a 4-0 victory against a China B team consisting of Zhou Yuelong and Liang Wenbo.

The random draw for the event in Milton Keynes next weekend (24/25 September) sees the world’s top four players paired with the leading four professionals in the women’s game.

World champion Ronnie O’Sullivan and 12-time women’s world champion Reanne Evans are 2/1 joint-favourites for the title alongside Masters holder Neil Robertson and women’s world champion Nutcharut Wongharuthai.

World Mixed Doubles line-up

• Ronnie O’Sullivan and Reanne Evans
• Judd Trump and Nutcharut Wongharuthai
• Mark Selby and Rebecca Kenna
• Neil Robertson and Ng On Yee

All matches in the group will be four frames with one point awarded for every frame won.

The two best teams will contest the final over the best-of-seven frames next Sunday.