On Monday I was looking at the big screen outside of the Crucible and noticed that they are showing a few confirmed dates for next season’s calendar. I have not seen these anywhere else yet so here are the dates in question…
The three tournaments specified are as follows:
Shanghai Masters: 7th-13th September 2009
Grand Prix: 3rd-11th October 2009
UK Championship: 5th-13th December 2009
Compared to this season there are some notable changes there, firstly the fact that the Shanghai Masters tournament will take place two weeks earlier next season. With the Northern Ireland Trophy widely expected to be discontinued due to a lack of sponsorship I would expect this to mark the start of the new season as far as the venue stages are concerned anyway.
The first BBC event will as ever be the Grand Prix and this will take place a week earlier than last season, as will the UK Championship which will unusually not run right up to Christmas as has been the case in recent years.
Hopefully I will be able to provide more details on the dates for the remaining events, as well as the all-important qualifiers when they are available. Also I will be giving the calendar page on this site a bit of a revamp over the summer so hopefully it will be a bit more pleasing on the eye.