While this week will see plenty of shocks at the World Championship qualifiers, the news today that the Pro Challenge Series has been scrapped by World Snooker is not a big surprise…
My thoughts on the merits of the Pro Challenge Series can be found here on my article last week but to summarise I think it is fairly clear that the lack of ranking points, TV exposure and any sort of structure limited the appeal of the events. As Dave Hendon has said on his blog, the fact that many of the lower ranked players have full-time jobs is another obstacle and I found it bizarre from that start that the events were scheduled to take place during the middle of the week. Hardly going to encourage interest from either the players or fans!
Hopefully though the system will be replaced effectively and with a format that encourages the players to take part. The idea of a darts-style Players Championship is an interesting one and I look forward to hearing more about that and the rest of the plans for next season’s calendar…