As is the norm when players withdraw from tournaments for medical reasons, initially no points were awarded to Steve Davis and Ronnie O’Sullivan when the latest provisional rankings were released on Monday. Click below to find out how the situation has now changed…
As reported on Snooker Scene blog, Steve Davis has now been awarded 1,900 points for the Bahrain Championship, while world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan has been given 700 points.
In Davis’ case he had qualified for the Championship by winning his last 48 match against Atthasit Mahitthi, but was always going to be in a difficult position as far as the TV stages went due to his Premier League commitments last Thursday. Due to meet O’Sullivan in the last 32, he was at least given a bye through to the next round when the world number one withdrew, meaning that he would be due to play Dominic Dale on the Tuesday.
As well as the Premier League though, there were also reports of an ear infection beginning to emerge which would mean that while he could still play snooker, he would be unable to fly over to Bahrain anyway and it was this that ultimately resulted in his withdrawal. As convenient as this turned out, he had a medical certificate to back him up so the only question would be how many points he would eventually be awarded. Would it be 1,900 because he had already been put through to the last 16 with O’Sullivan’s withdrawal, or would it be just 1,400 due to his non-appearance at the event? In the end they have gone for the former and he moves up in 22nd place in the rankings as a result, keeping his hopes of a return to the top 16 alive.
In O’Sullivan’s case it was more straightforward as he withdrew due to exhaustion and the stress of his hectic schedule, again having a medical certificate to back him up. He receives his first round losers points of 700 and increases his lead over Stephen Maguire at the top of the rankings to over 7,000 points.
It is good to see that both cases have been dealt with relatively quickly and hopefully this will continue to be the case in the future when such a sitation arises.