As the season enters its final weeks, here is an update on how I aim to cover the World Championship here at PSB, as well as a look ahead to the summer and my immediate plans for the blog…
The coming weeks
Yes April is near and with the World Championship draw now made, all eyes are on the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield for the biggest two weeks of the snooker calendar. Still, before then there is still a lot of snooker to be played as the Championship League comes to a conclusion, the China Open takes place out in Beijing and on the amateur side, the PIOS comes to a conclusion.
As for the coverage here, the China Open and the Championship League will be much the same as usual, but for the World Championship I hope to be able to attend for a few days of the tournament and give those of you who cannot make it a flavour of how it feels to watch snooker at the most famous arena of all.
Hopefully you have enjoyed reading my qualifying reports and they have given you some idea at least of how the matches have unfolded. With those I have tried to focus on the matches themselves due to them not being broadcast on TV, but from the Crucible I will aim to focus more on anything interesting that I see off the table. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions for things that I could do during the tournament then feel free to get in touch.
During the 16 days immediately preceding the tournament the plan is to provide a detailed preview each of the opening round matches at Sheffield, as well as a prediction on how I think the matches will unfold so hopefully that will start some debate!
The Summer
Once the tournament is over though, that will mark the end of the season and a four month wait until the next ranking event tournament as the 2009/10 season gets underway. There are however a number of invitational events planned for the summer such as the continuation of the World Series, various events in Asia and of course the Paul Hunter Classic in Germany, and you will be able to find the very latest updates on those events here.
With the lack of ranking events and qualifying tournaments to cover however, I should also have more time to spend improving the site generally because although I am generally happy with it now, certain areas are still a bit of a work in progress such as the legends and the TV pages. I had hoped to have these profiles completed by now but I have not quite found the time and the summer should give me the opportunity to rectify this.
In addition, the plan is to update and review the profile pages for the 96 main tour players, as well as produce profiles for the new players that will join the tour for next season. By the time the new season starts these should be completed and accessible via the players page as usual. On this subject I am aware that many of the YouTube videos that I have linked to have since been removed so this is one thing that I hope to sort out, perhaps replacing them with photos instead.
More fundamental changes will be made to the results/rankings page too. This season as I have been getting the blog started I have been happy to link to the excellent Global Snooker lists, but the plan for next season is to have the very latest rankings up directly here at PSB.
If you have any suggestions, things that you would like to see more of, or like to see less of on here then again, do not hesitate to get in touch.