Kyren Wilson reveals family remarks ahead of UK Championship | Other | Sport

Kyren Wilson has revealed his family are confident his fortunes will turn around sooner rather than later, following a below-par start to the 2025/26 season. Since winning the Shanghai Masters in August, Wilson’s form has been inconsistent, although his wife falling ill and a change of cue has not helped him on the table. 

The world no.2 reached the Northern Ireland Open quarter-final before losing out to Jack Lisowski last month, but that is as good as it has got for Wilson, 33, since his success in Shanghai. However, Kettering-born Wilson – and his family are – is confident things will change in the near future, just like the season he won the World Championship where his form was patchy before the biggest win of his career.

“To be honest, behind the scenes, this is what my family is saying,” he told the Daily Mail. “They’re saying you’ve got to keep going through. The tide might turn at the Worlds again.

“I’m very impatient. I don’t want to wait for the World Championship, but I’ve had a couple of really sickening losses this season.

“Jack [Lisowski] played great in Belfast, but he had an awful lot of luck against me in that quarter-final match. If I go on to win that, who knows, could I have been standing in Jack’s position?

“I lost a sickener to Zhao Xintong on the black in the Champion of Champions where he fluked a ball at 5-4 down to go on and clear up. If I win that I’m in the semi finals, and then who knows?

“And again, Stephen Maguire did it to me [at the International Championship]. Did the old whack and win, as we call it where he just got down and smashed the balls, one went in, and he cleared up.

“It’s little things that people don’t see like that that completely change the outcome of a game, but if that goes your way, there’s these instances that, I’m not saying I’m going to go on to win them, but you can’t say there’s no chance. I couldn’t have, and then you could be talking about totally different season. But it’s swings and roundabouts. Hopefully, it comes at the right time.”

Wilson is next in action at the UK Championship, where he kicks off his campaign against Elliot Slessor in York next Tuesday. Should he win, he will face the winner of the first round tie between Barry Hawkins and David Lilley.