| Tournament Name: | 2003 European Open |
| Venue: | Palace Hotel |
| Location: | Torquay |
| Country: | England |
| Organisation: | WPBSA |
| Format: | Ranking event |
| Total Prize Fund: | £250,000 |
| Winners Share: | £44,000 |
| Highest Break: | (142) |
| Score: | 9–6 |
| Previous: | 2001 |
| Next: | 2004 |
The 2003 European Open was a professional snooker tournament and the fifth of eight WPBSA ranking events in the 2002/2003 season, following the Welsh Open. It was held from 11 to 16 March 2003 at the Palace Hotel in Torquay, England. This marked the first and only time when any of the editions of this tournament was not held outside the British Isles. Ronnie O'Sullivan won his 12th ranking title by defeating Stephen Hendry 9–6 in the final.[1] O'Sullivan went on to win back-to-back ranking titles – his next coming at the 2003 Irish Masters, just two weeks later, where he triumphed over John Higgins in a deciding frame.
Defending champion Stephen Hendry was the number 1 seed with World Champion Peter Ebdon seeded 2. The remaining places were allocated to players based on the world rankings.
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:[2]
| Final: Best of 17 frames. Referee: Jan Verhaas. Palace Hotel, Torquay, England, 16 March 2003. | |||
| Stephen Hendry (1) | 6–9 | Ronnie O'Sullivan (3) | |
| Afternoon: 0–140 (140), 100–11, 101–7 (101), 0–76 (76), 5–65 (52), 3–131 (126), 8–76 (76), 88–33 (88) Evening: 0–142 (142), 97–25 (53), 123–1 (117), 0–77 (77), 72–37 (72), 50–79 (Hendry 50), 0–79 (79) | |||
| 117 | Highest break | 142 | |
| 2 | Century breaks | 3 | |
| 6 | 50+ breaks | 8 | |
Best of 9 frames
| Craig Butler | 5–3 | Manan Chandra | |
| 0–5 | Simon Bedford | ||
| Sean Storey | 5–2 | Pang Weiguo | |
| Jason Prince | 5–2 | Ricky Walden | |
 Phaitoon Phonbun | 5–2 | Hugh Abernethy | |
| Adrian Gunnell | 5–1 | Atthasit Mahitthi | |
| Jason Ferguson | 5–4 | Jamie Cope | |
| Stephen Kershaw | 5–3 | Peter Roscoe | |
 Kristján Helgason | 5–4 | David Gilbert | |
| John Read | w/o–w/d | Matthew Farrant | |
| Andrew Higginson | 5–0 | Justin Astley | |
| Andrew Norman | 5–2 | James Reynolds | |
| Paul Wykes | 5–0 |  Colm Gilcreest | |
| Martin Dziewialtowski | w/o–w/d | Eddie Manning | |
| Matthew Couch | 5–0 | Jimmy Robertson | |
| Paul Davies | 5–0 | Leo Fernandez |
| 3–5 | David John | ||
| w/d–w/o | Jin Long | ||
| 1–5 | Bob Chaperon | ||
| 3–5 | Stefan Mazrocis | ||
| Shaun Murphy | 5–1 | Jason Weston | |
| Luke Fisher | 5–1 | Lee Spick | |
| 4–5 | David McLellan | ||
| Rod Lawler | 5–2 | Mario Wehrman | |
| Troy Shaw | 5–2 | Darren Clarke | |
| Alain Robidoux | 5–3 | Mark Gray | |
| Antony Bolsover | 5–2 | David Donovan | |
| 3–5 | Munraj Pal | ||
| 2–5 | Kwan Poomjang | ||
| 4–5 | Matthew Selt | ||
| Wayne Brown | 5–4 | Johl Younger | |
| 3–5 | Nick Pearce |