As well as the various ranking battles involving the professional players, also to be resolved this weekend was the race between the amateurs for places in the EBSA Order of Merit, with the top 16 progressing to a play-off event later in the season to contest two main tour places.
Click below for a look at who I think the qualifiers will be, as well as a reminder of how the Order of Merit will operate this season…
All snooker players who dream of competing on the professional tour take note: Q School 2015 is now open for entry!
The tournament will take place in May and for the first time it will be held at the Meadowside Leisure Centre, Burton.
An interesting line from World Snooker today as it has been announced that the winner of the 2015 Pan-American Snooker Championship will earn not only a two-year tour card from the 2015/16 season, but also a place at this season’s World Championship qualifiers in Sheffield, in line with changes announced by Barry Hearn at the Crucible last April.
Following the ET5 event in Lisbon this weekend, there will be just one more European Tour event to be played this season and therefore one more chance for the amateurs to gain a top 16 place in this season’s EBSA Amateur Order of Merit.
Click below to view to updated standings, as well as a reminder of how the Order of Merit will operate this season…
Away from the UK Championship action in York this afternoon, 14-year-old Yan Bingtao has become the 2014 IBSF World Champion, with an 8-7 victory against Pakistan’s Muhammad Sajjad earlier today.
Already a familiar name on the main tour following victories against the likes of Stuart Bingham, Yu Delu, Barry Pinches and Liang Wenbo this season, he won the last two frames today, the decider with a break of 60 to succeed countryman Zhou Yuelong as world amateur champion.
Yan earns a two-year tour card from the 2015/16 season and will be the latest young Chinese talent looking to emulate the achievements of Ding Junhui on the professional circuit.
Although just 14 years old, by our calculations here in the York media room, he misses out on becoming the youngest ever winner of the event by around six weeks, Welshman Michael White edging him out following his 2006 victory.
Three events down, three to go and while I recently provided an update as to how the race for tour places is building as far as the main ranking lists are concerned, this morning I turn to the leading amateurs, who are also battling for places on the newly revised EBSA Order of Merit.
From this list there will be 16 qualifiers for the season-ending EBSA play-offs, with two main tour places ultimately up for grabs.
Click below to see how the list looks at the halfway stage…
While snooker news is a little thin on the ground at the moment during this rarest of months off, over the weekend there was an interesting bit of news from World Snooker concerning the revised EBSA Order of Merit, which this season will be taken from the ‘main’ European Tour events, rather than separate ‘amateur cup’ events. You can view the details in full over at World Snooker here.
A couple of people have asked me what I think of the system and in truth I think it will be easier to make a judgement once a few events have been staged and we have an initial order of merit to look at. On paper though, perhaps the section that caught my eye the most was:
“Where a Player is seeded through to a later round of qualifying and they win their first ‘seeded match’ they will receive not only the 10 points for that match but also the 10 points per round for each of the rounds that they were seeded through.“
Is it a sensible way to ensure that players who receive a bye do not lose out in any way in terms of the EBSA list or is it unfair to award points to players for matches that they have not actually won? My gut feeling is that it seems sensible enough and as good a way as any to deal with the situation, but I would be interested to hear what you think.
More generally, the provision that effectively means that seeded losers are to receive no points is something that on balance I do agree with, primarily because it reflects the reality of the modern professional circuit and the main tour rankings, whereby seeded losers such as Barry Hawkins received no points from the Australian Goldfields Open following his last 32 defeat.
Thoughts?
