Marcel Eckardt
Born | Gera, Thuringia, East Germany | 27 October 1989
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Sport country | Germany |
Professional | 2013–present |
Marcel Eckardt (born 27 October 1989 in Gera, Thuringia) is a German snooker and pool referee.
Career
Eckardt is from Töppeln close to Gera in Germany.[1] At the age of 13 Eckardt became interested in snooker while watching Eurosport.[2] With nowhere to play snooker close to his childhood home, he only took up snooker later in life and continues to mostly play pool.[2] In 2008, he completed his first course in snooker refereeing, earning the national association of Thuringia C-licence in Hohenstein-Ernstthal, and later obtained the national B-licence. He first refereed professional players in 2010, during an exhibition tournament in Bruges featuring Stephen Hendry and Steve Davis, amongst others.[3] The same year he applied to referee the new Players Tour Championship and he gained experience in European tournaments and in qualification matches for the Main Tour. He refereed his first Players Tour Championship Final at the 2012 Paul Hunter Classic,[1] and his first full ranking tournament was the 2012 German Masters.
For the 2013/2014 season, Eckardt at the age of 23 became the youngest ever member of the referee A-squad,[4] the group of twelve referees licensed to work in the final rounds of all ranked tournaments. In the 2015 German Masters, Eckardt became the youngest person to referee a full ranking tournament final.[5] Eckardt also refereed the 2016 European Masters final in Bucharest, Romania.[6] In 2018 and 2019, he refereed at the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield.[7] In 2020, he refereed the final of the World Snooker Championship.[8]
Eckardt has been in charge of eight tournament matches that have contained maximum breaks, most notably Ronnie O'Sullivan's record 15th maximum at the 2018 English Open.[9]
List of ranking finals
As of February 2022, Eckardt has refereed 11 ranking finals:
- 2015 German Masters
- 2015 Welsh Open
- 2016 Indian Open
- 2016 European Masters
- 2017 Northern Ireland Open
- 2018 UK Championship
- 2019 Scottish Open
- 2020 World Snooker Championship
- 2020 Championship League (2)
- 2020 Northern Ireland Open
- 2021 German Masters
References
- ^ a b "Marcel Eckardt schiedst Finale der PHC 2011". pbc-erfurt.de (in German). PBC Erfurt. 2011. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
- ^ a b Rachael Rodgers (2012-03-22). "Meet Marcel" (PDF; 3,34 MiB). Fast & Furious Snooker, March Issue 1. Fast & Furious Snooker and DN5 Media. pp. 2 f. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
- ^ "Snookerstars in Erfurt". pbc-erfurt.de (in German). PBC Erfurt. 2010-05-09. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
- ^ Rolf Kalb (2013-05-21). "Snooker – Marcel Eckardt jetzt A-Kader-Schiri". de.eurosport.yahoo.com (in German). Eurosport. Archived from the original on 2015-02-19. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
- ^ Hans Moritz, Weltkarriere hinterm Grünen Tisch, Märkische Oderzeitung, 19 January 2019.
- ^ "Un roman arbitreaza finala turneului de snooker de la Bucuresti" (in Romanian). onlinesport.ro. 2018-03-17.
- ^ Fabian Nitschmann (2018-04-26). "Im feinen Zwirn zur WM: Deutscher richtet über die Snooker-Profis". n-tv.de. n-tv Nachrichtenfernsehen. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
- ^ "Eckardt to referee Crucible final".
- ^ "147 Breaks". WPBSA. Retrieved 6 November 2022.
Marcel Eckardt (8)
External links
- Katharina Schneider (2014-03-22). "Snooker – Marcel Eckardt – in der Weltspitze zu Hause". de.eurosport.yahoo.com. Eurosport. Archived from the original on 2015-02-19. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
- Profile of Marcel Eckardt at Pro Snooker Blog
- Profile of Marcel Eckardt at World Snooker