Carty, Ashley

Ashley Carty (born 17 July 1995) is an English professional snooker player. At age 17, he reached the final of the 2013 EBSA European Under-21 Snooker Championship, losing 0–6 to James Cahill. He won the 2014 English Under-21 Championship, defeating Joe O’Connor 8–3 in the final. The following year, competing as an amateur, he reached the last 32 of both the 2015 German Masters and the 2015 Welsh Open.

At the third event of the 2018 Q School he earned a two-year professional tour card for the 2018–19 and 2019–20 seasons. He achieved his first significant professional success when he defeated Ken Doherty and Neil Robertson in televised matches at the 2020 Championship League, topping his group. At the 2020 World Snooker Championship, he defeated Ross Muir, Jimmy Robertson, and Robert Milkins in the qualifiers to reach the main stage of the event for the first time, but his Crucible debut ended with a 7–10 first-round defeat to Stuart Bingham. He was ranked 77th in the world at the end of the 2019–20 season, outside the top-64 cutoff point, but reaching the main stage of the World Championship secured him a two-year tour card for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons.

Carty finished the 2021–22 season ranked 75th in the world, and was relegated from the professional tour. Carty stated that his father had been in hospital for almost five months with COVID-19 during the 2021–22 season, and he did not practice for much of that time. However, he won the 2022/23 WPBSA Q Tour Playoff in March 2023, beating Florian Nüßle 5–2 in the final, which earned him a new two-year tour card for the 2023–24 and 2024–25 seasons. At the 2023 European Masters, he defeated Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 5–1 in the last 32 and Ricky Walden 5–3 in the last 16 to reach the first ranking quarter-final of his career, where he lost 1–5 to Judd Trump.