Interesting news today as World Snooker have announced the ranking points schedule for the upcoming 2009/10 season will be amended, no doubt due to the loss of the Northern Ireland Trophy and Bahrain Championship events compared to last year…
As pointed out on Snooker Scene blog, the key changes are that the points for the Shanghai Masters and China Open tournaments have been raised, along with those for the Grand Prix and the UK Championship. Unchanged however are the points for the World Championship and Welsh Open which means that the latter is now unique in offering just 5,000 points to the winner.
Whether this is a good change I am not so sure. On the one hand I do believe that the points needed to be amended to bring things more into line with last season, but on the other I am struggling to see why the Welsh Open has not been brought up to the level of the two Chinese tournaments. What it also means is that the World Championship is not quite as crucial as it has been in the past relative to the other tournaments, something that I find questionable considering the significantly longer frame matches involved.
In any case at least it does mean that players who performed well last season are not gaining a significant advantage as they would have done had the points tariff remained unchanged, while at the same time those who struggled will have a chance to catch up with a good season.
The full schedule for 2009/10 is as follows:
| Rounds | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Quarter
Final |
Semi Final | Runner up | Winner | ||
| Last 96 | Last 80 | Last 64 | Last 48 | Last 32 | Last 16
|
|||||||
| Roewe Shanghai Masters | seeded loser |
560 280 |
910 455 |
1260 630 |
1610 805 |
1960 980 |
2660 |
3500 |
4480 |
5600 |
7000 |
|
| Grand Prix
|
seeded loser |
560 280 |
910 455 |
1260 630 |
1610 805 |
1960 980 |
2660 |
3500 |
4480 |
5600 |
7000 |
|
| UK Championship | seeded loser |
640 320 |
1040 520 |
1440 720 |
1840 920 |
2240 1120 |
3040 |
4000 |
5120 |
6400 |
8000 |
|
| Welsh Open | seeded loser |
400 200 |
650 325 |
900 450 |
1150 575 |
1400 700 |
1900 |
2500 |
3200 |
4000 |
5000 |
|
| China Open | seeded loser |
560 280 |
910 455 |
1260 630 |
1610 805 |
1960 980 |
2660 |
3500 |
4480 |
5600 |
7000 |
|
| Betfred.com World Snooker Championship | seeded loser |
800 400 |
1300 650 |
1800 900 |
2300 1150 |
2800 1400 |
3800 |
5000 |
6400 |
8000 |
10000 |
You can view the schedules for previous seasons here at World Snooker.
Another reactive decision rather than any planned out pro active planning. Makes last seasons efforts much less important, which begs the question why didnt they do away with the 2 year system altogether. All that effort to do well last year will be undone if you get a good result in China – Ricky must be rubbinghis hands together as he likes it there. And whoever decided to change 4 events but leave the Welsh and World the same must have forgotten to go to the end of the alphabet and simply forgot about the “W” events. It wouldnt surprise me either having seen the old men that help run this tour!!! What a joke – increase Welsh and World then it could make sense – as it is – a complete farce – but then what’s new!! YOU R LETTINGUR PLAYERS AND FANS DOWN!!!
i totally agree!! the whole reason this sport is struggling is due to the old boys with old ideas! the welsh and worlds need to be changed too…. the worlds in particular needs to be raised so it has more of an edge and add s drama to the end of the season… when will the wpbsa learn…
China and Shanghai in the same class with Grand Prix?? More important than Welsh Open?? And very much near to UK?? Then, winning the BBC tournaments is not going to make the same impact anymore. Then, instead of winning the World’s, go on and win to far-east tournaments, as we see, it’s far easy to do it these days, Ebdon and Walden are reigning champions, no disrespect to those two, but they were far from a good performance whole season in the other events, especially Peter. I’m not hopeful about this points system, it’s not going to be carried on more than a couple of years, I suppose..
this is ridiculous
The only reason the world and Uk gave more points was based upon the longer frame matches.To receive more for reaching the semis of china or Grand Prix than final of the Welsh makes a mockery of the ranking list
I agree, does devalue the Welsh which does not seem justifiable.