2022 UK Championship

2022 Cazoo UK Championship
Tournament information
Dates12–20 November 2022 (2022-11-12 – 2022-11-20)
VenueYork Barbican
CityYork
CountryEngland
OrganisationWorld Snooker Tour
FormatRanking event
Total prize fund£1,205,000
Winner's share£250,000
Highest break Cao Yupeng (CHN) (144)
Final
Champion Mark Allen (NIR)
Runner-up Ding Junhui (CHN)
Score10–7
2021
2023

The 2022 UK Championship (officially the 2022 Cazoo UK Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 12 to 20 November 2022 at the York Barbican in York, England. The fifth ranking event and first Triple Crown event of the 2022–23 snooker season, the tournament was the 46th edition of the UK Championship, which was first held in 1977. Organised by the World Snooker Tour and sponsored by car retail company Cazoo, the event was broadcast domestically by the BBC and Eurosport. The winner received £250,000 from a total prize fund of £1,205,000.

The tournament organisers changed the format for the 2022 event, replacing the flat-128 draw that had been used from 2013 to 2021 with a format that closely resembled that of the World Snooker Championship. The top 16 players in the world rankings were seeded through to the last-32 stage, where they were joined by 16 qualifiers from a 128-player qualifying tournament that took place from 5 to 10 November at Ponds Forge in Sheffield. Aged 60, Jimmy White became the oldest player to qualify for the tournament's final stages since 63-year-old Eddie Charlton in 1993.

The defending champion was Zhao Xintong, who defeated Luca Brecel 10–5 in the final of the 2021 event. Zhao lost 2–6 in the first round to Sam Craigie. Mark Allen reached his third UK Championship final, having been runner-up in 2011 and 2018, where he faced three-time winner Ding Junhui, who reached his first ranking final in three years. Allen trailed in every match he played in the tournament, and fell 1–6 behind in the final, but he won nine of the last ten frames to clinch a 10–7 victory. He became the second Northern Irish player to win the UK Championship, after Alex Higgins in 1983; his comeback from 1–6 behind saw him overcome the largest deficit in a UK Championship final since Higgins came from 0–7 behind to defeat Steve Davis 16–15 in that year. It was Allen's eighth ranking title and second Triple Crown title, following his win at the 2018 Masters. Cao Yupeng made the tournament's highest break of 144 in his second-round qualifying match against Callum Beresford.