The snooker tour resumes tomorrow with the start of this year’s Haining Open, an event won last season by Stuart Bingham who now has an impressive four Asian Tour titles to his name.
Although Stuart will not be returning to defend his title in 2015, the tournament remains one that is deceptively important for many players, more so than ever in 2015 as eight Players Championship places and two main tour cards could effectively be up for grabs this week…
As the nights draw in and the clocks go back, it is also that time of the year when I take a close look at the battle for tour places from the start of the 2016/17 season. As regular readers will be well aware, to fully understand how each of the current tour players are currently placed, it is necessary to analyse a number of different ranking lists and orders of merit.
With two of the biggest money events to come in the International Championship and UK Championship tournaments, today I take my first player-by-player look at the current state of play and flag up some of the surprise names with work to do if they are to remain on tour for another season…
Three days down at the 2014 Players Championship Grand Finals and we have seen the top four players in the rankings, as well as reigning world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan crash out before the quarter-final stages.
Click below for a round-up of the main stories so far…
Congratulations to Stuart Bingham who has today defeated Liang Wenbo 4-1 to win the Asian Tour Four event in Dongguan, his first title of the season and third Asian Tour event overall since their introduction in 2012. The victory means that Stuart will take home the top prize of £10,000, as well as a special gift from the sponsors as he has tweeted earlier today.
Aside from Stuart’s success, the end of this end also marks the end of the 2013/14 Asian Tour, now confirming who has qualified for the Players Championship Grand Finals later this month and which four player will earn a tour-year tour card from the list.
Click below for more on the various ranking implications from this tournament…
It feels like yesterday since the previous seedings revision following the International Championship earlier this month, but already the next cut-off is moving ever closer, coming after December’s UK Championship.
In fact, for the majority of players on tour, this week’s UK Championship qualifiers will be their last chance to add points to their tally for a crucial cut-off, which will determine the seedings for all of the remaining tournaments this season except the World Championship…
Day one from Sheffield as the 2012 China Open qualifiers got underway and it was a good day for the Chinese players as all three of their competing players advanced to the last 80…
Day two in Berlin as the first round came to a conclusion and what a day it was as Ronnie O’Sullivan fought back to secure a crucial victory, while John Higgins suffered his first whitewash in a professional event in 16 years…
Following the conclusion of the UK Championship, tomorrow sees the start of a PTC double-header as first PTC12 is played to the last 16 stage over two days, before PTC11 is then played in full between Saturday-Monday. While there are as ever important ranking points up for grabs, for those players further down the list, it will be their last chance to add to their total on the PTC Order of Merit and potentially, survive on tour for 2012/13. Click below for an explanation of how it all works and who needs a result or two…