Following a weekend in Germany for the Ruhr Open, the snooker circus heads to York on Tuesday for the start of the second most prestigious ranking event on the calendar, the UK Championship in York.
Click below for my thoughts on the tournament in general, as well as the shape of the draw and confirmation of which opening round matches will be streamed prior to the start of the televised stages at the weekend…
Snooker returns to terrestrial television this Monday for the first time since the World Championship, as we see the return of the invitational Champion of Champions event on ITV4.
Click below for my thoughts ahead of Ronnie O’Sullivan’s latest title defence in Coventry…
Although this week will not see the return of ranking event snooker following the postponement of the Indian Open, there will be action for a few of the professionals at least, as the General Cup is staged in Hong Kong for the sixth time.
While there is a strong line-up across the board, clearly the main talking point is that of the return of Ali Carter, who will play his first professional match since the World Championship on Monday morning against Marco Fu.
I’m sure that I speak for all of us here in the snooker community of fans and players alike that it is brilliant to see him back in action after his treatment for cancer and hopefully we will soon see him on our TV screens at events such as the UK Championship before the end of the year.
You can view all of the latest scores and group standings, as ever, here at snookerorg.
We might still be in June as I write this, but little over a week from now will come the first seedings revision of the 2014/15 season, following the final of the Australan Goldfields Open in Bendigo.
Determining the seedings for this season’s Shanghai Masters, one of just three events remaining under the ‘non-flat’ draw structure, the cut-off marks the first mid-season revision under the new prize money based ranking list.
Click below for my analysis…
For those of us who like to keep an eye on all things rankings related, during each season there are usually a number of themes to follow just from a look at the various ranking lists.
For example a couple of seasons ago, it was only a matter of time before Judd Trump became number one, given the relative lack of points that he was defending compared to those above him, while last season it was the likes of Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui who were well placed to climb to the top of the list due to lesser performances two years previously.
This year has of course seen a change to a prize-money based ranking list, but the premise of a two-year rolling system remains the same and so below I take a look at a few themes that I will be following as the season progresses.
To assist, @joanneballantyn has also helped to put together the usual ‘money to defend’ lists (available here), which show which points will be coming off at each cut-off point.
Click below for more…
Five years ago following John Higgins’ victory at the 2009 World Championship at the Crucible, following a similar feature prepared by the BBC, I wrote a blog, predicting how the top eight of the world rankings would look in 2014.
Having been reminded of the article earlier during this year’s World Championship, now exactly five years on I take a look back at accurate my predictions were, all well as attempting to predict how the top eight will look in another five years in 2019…
As the dust settles on Mark Selby’s memorable World Championship victory at the Crucible Theatre, it’s time to look back on the best of my photos from this year’s tournament, including those of the venue, backstage and the people involved in the action…
The three day gap between the conclusion of the final qualifying round for this year’s World Championship and the start of play tomorrow morning at the Crucible makes the job of previewing the tournament ever-more difficult.
But this year I am hopeful that I have been able to do the tournament justice, thanks to the help of former world number 3, turned highly respected snooker analyst Neal Foulds, who spoke with me this morning to help preview each of the 16 opening round matches and offer his thoughts as to who will be lifting the famous trophy on 5th May 2014…