With the Wuxi Classic qualifiers just days away, World Snooker have today produced their version of my ever-popular ‘Roll Call’ article, confirming all but one of the players who will compete on the main tour in 2012/13. Accordingly, the draw for the Wuxi Classic qualifiers has also been made public…
- To view the list of main tour players for next season, please click here
For those of you who have been following my roll call updates, there are few surprises on the list, indeed thanks to everyone who has commented during the past few weeks, we were virtually spot on.
The one issue that has been clarified is that Stephen Hendry will remain ranked, despite his retirement, and therefore Tony Drago does not move up to 64th place, nor will there be an extra spot on the tour for another player. That being said, tournaments will not be short of entries due to the new rule meaning that tournaments will be topped up to 96 (if required), by the leading non-qualifiers from the Q School, a list that I believe to be headed by Northern Ireland’s Jordan Brown.
The final place to be filled is that which will go to the winner of the 2012 European Championship, though whoever earns this spot will be at an immediate disadvantage given that the tournament does not conclude until after the qualifiers for the Australian Goldfields Open and Wuxi Classic events.
Meanwhile, the draw has been published for the Wuxi Classic and the key points have in fact already been summarised by Alan in the comments section of my Roll Call article:
“Looks like Carter and Higginson are 15th & 16th seeds
Mark Davis 17th seed and Ken Doherty 32nd seed
Robert Milkins 33rd seed and Alan McManus 48th seed
Peter Lines 49th seed, and they have not followed through (thankfully) with Hearn’s threat to seed anyone outside the top 64 by alphabetical order, instead giving seeds 61 to 64 to the top four in the PTC order of merit.”
Finally, many will no doubt be wondering where the first version of my latest projected seedings list is, but unfortunately as World Snooker have not yet confirmed which points will be deducted at the first seedings revision, it makes it impossible to do so without an element of guesswork.
Hopefully that will not be too long in coming…