A very short post today to apologise for the lack of posts over the weekend and more importantly, the fact that I have not updated the latest projected seedings following the Ruhr Open yesterday. (EDIT – these are now up to date)
Unfortunately I am having a few tech issues at the moment with the blog that are preventing me from doing so, but hopefully normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!
As those amongst snooker’s ‘Twitterati’ will no doubt be aware, there has been some debate in recent days on social media as to whether the size of snooker’s main tour should be cut from its current field of 125 players (plus three invitational tour cards), to just 64 as suggested by 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy in his own blog post here.
With a few days now before the Ruhr Open gets underway at the weekend, today I offer a few of my own thoughts on the topic and suggest why personally at least, I am glad that the tour will be remaining as it is…
World Snooker has today confirmed which seeds will play in the group stages at next month’s Champion of Champions event in Coventry, with two-time defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan scheduled to get underway on Wednesday 11th November 2015.
O’Sullivan’s participation would of course represent his first professional outing of the new season, though it should noted that the official press release does state that ‘the participation of all players is subject to contracts being agreed.’
It is then unclear whether anything has changed at this point and whether Ronnie has indicated that he does intend to play, after his recent tweet suggesting that he would not be entering the event.
The official press release follows…
Saturday evening saw the conclusion of the recent qualifying event for this year’s International Championship and it was not without a real shock as 2012 winner Judd Trump suffered a 6-0 whitewash at the hands of 34-year-old Michael Wild.
Click below for a round-up of the scorelines that caught my eye during the event…
Following a week of downtime after Kyren Wilson’s victory at the Shanghai Masters, snooker is back as the International Championship qualifiers get underway at the Barnsley Metrodome tomorrow.
Many of snooker’s most famous names will return to the Guild Hall in Preston in January for the World Seniors Championship.
The iconic Lancashire venue, which has hosted major tournaments including the UK Championship, has again been selected to host a World Snooker Tour event.
Two ranking tournaments into the 2015/16 campaign, already it is possible to identify some of the players who are sure of being on the main tour next season and perhaps more importantly, those whose places are at real risk.
With every pound, dollar or euro to be earned during the remainder of this season likely to be crucial, today I take my customary look at the likely qualification criteria and look at some of those to follow over the coming months…
Yesterday evening the Snooker Legends roadshow rolled into Scunthorpe and being local to the event, I popped down to the venue to watch Ronnie O’Sullivan and Jimmy White in action.
As it would turn out, the night proved to be far more memorable than even I had envisaged as O’Sullivan brought the crowd to their feet with a magical maximum break…