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SnookerFan - Posts: 149838
- Joined: 13 December 2009
- Snooker Idol: Michaela Tabb
- Walk-On: Entry Of The Gladiators
SnookerFan wrote:Good job that I am finally going to give Milton Keynes a try in a couple of weeks, if they're moving the English Open.
Though will definitely check Brentwood out.
SnookerFan wrote:Good job that I am finally going to give Milton Keynes a try in a couple of weeks, if they're moving the English Open.
Though will definitely check Brentwood out.
Iranu wrote:SnookerFan wrote:Good job that I am finally going to give Milton Keynes a try in a couple of weeks, if they're moving the English Open.
Though will definitely check Brentwood out.
Well you say definitely...
lhpirnie wrote:Well it's great news for me, as I'm now living 30 mins away.
But the really important part of that story is that only 70+ players will be there. In other words the 5-day qualifier round has become a permanent thing. Because these Home Nations tournaments now take 12-13 days, it means there will be no space on the schedule for any events in China in 2022-23.
HappyCamper wrote:eric pickles used to be mp for brentwood.
lhpirnie wrote:Well it's great news for me, as I'm now living 30 mins away.
But the really important part of that story is that only 70+ players will be there. In other words the 5-day qualifier round has become a permanent thing. Because these Home Nations tournaments now take 12-13 days, it means there will be no space on the schedule for any events in China in 2022-23.
Iranu wrote:lhpirnie wrote:Well it's great news for me, as I'm now living 30 mins away.
But the really important part of that story is that only 70+ players will be there. In other words the 5-day qualifier round has become a permanent thing. Because these Home Nations tournaments now take 12-13 days, it means there will be no space on the schedule for any events in China in 2022-23.
Shanghai Masters will be unaffected I guess, since it’s top 16 and their HN matches are heldover?
lhpirnie wrote:No, what I meant was that with the Home Nations occupying around 50 days on the calendar, there literally is almost no space to include any of the Chinese events. I'm assuming the World Championship, UK Championship, Masters, British Open, Champion of Champions, the Cazoo Series and the European events are certainties. Basically WST have given up on China.
Juddernaut88 wrote:Iranu the point lhpirnie is making is spot on. There are a lot of big China tournaments. International championship, World Open, China Championship and China Open. The first 4 have generally been played during the first half of the season.
Now they may only play one of them in the first half of the season due to the silly introduction of qualifiers for the home nation events. China Open should be okay for the 2nd half of the season but it's a shame there's a chance we could be losing at least 3 major China events unless some adjustments are made.
Juddernaut88 wrote:Iranu the point lhpirnie is making is spot on. There are a lot of big China tournaments. International championship, World Open, China Championship and China Open. The first 4 have generally been played during the first half of the season.
Now they may only play one of them in the first half of the season due to the silly introduction of qualifiers for the home nation events. China Open should be okay for the 2nd half of the season but it's a shame there's a chance we could be losing at least 3 major China events unless some adjustments are made.
Iranu wrote:Juddernaut88 wrote:Iranu the point lhpirnie is making is spot on. There are a lot of big China tournaments. International championship, World Open, China Championship and China Open. The first 4 have generally been played during the first half of the season.
Now they may only play one of them in the first half of the season due to the silly introduction of qualifiers for the home nation events. China Open should be okay for the 2nd half of the season but it's a shame there's a chance we could be losing at least 3 major China events unless some adjustments are made.
I understand all that. My issues with what he’s said are:
1) Saying there’s no space for any China events - as you say, the China Open should be fine. And the Shanghai Masters will be unaffected by qualifiers as they can take place concurrently
2) The suggestion that it means WST has “given up” on China - the evidence for this is slim at best and we don’t even know if, should there be fewer China tournaments next season, that’s WST’s decision or China’s.
It seems to me that LHPirnie takes any opportunity, no matter how spurious, to rubbish on WST and broadcasters’ ‘treatment’ of China and Chinese players.
He’s making a huge assumption based on an announcement for the English Open. We have no idea how spot on that assumption is or isn’t.
Even this season there were three weeks between the British Open and the English Open that could have held at least two tournaments in a “China leg”.
lhpirnie wrote:Everything you say is quite true!
But actually I would give WST a lot of praise for keeping things going during the pandemic. They have exceeded my expectations. Where I do have a bit of a problem is when they don't announce things explicitly, which have implications. The most obvious one is when they unleashed the British Open, but didn't mention the best-of-5 format (it was a footnote in the booking page). In this case, their announcement of Brentwood didn't say anything about the qualifiers. Did they expect anyone to notice? That's why I made the point so aggressively. Yeah, to say "given up on China" is an exaggeration, but from what I can work out from their (secretly planned) schedule, there can't be any events there for at least another 12 months. That has implications in terms of contracts expiring - the whole China thing will need a renegotiation and a relaunch.
In that sense, I don't blame WST for not discussing it in public - everything is still conditional after all. The main reason why they've made the announcement about Brentwood is because of twinning with a pool event. But it's reasonable to debate it on a snooker forum.
My worry now is about the dates and format of the World Championship - is best-of-11 now established for the first two rounds? As for WST's stated ambition of 'globalisation', I don't think it's enough just to have a few tournaments a year with later rounds held overseas but with qualifiers in the UK. That's a UK-based tour. Again, I would hope the future of snooker is a bit fairer - it has to be to make globalisation sustainable.
Iranu wrote:...
I don’t think WST have any obligation to make the planning of their schedule public, to be fair. And again you’re assuming the lack of China tournaments in the schedule is WST’s choice, which we simply don’t know - and I would argue is unlikely given China’s value to the tour.
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Pink Ball wrote:I don’t understand snooker’s aversion to major cities. When last did we have a tournament in Birmingham? Liverpool? Leeds? Even Manchester has rarely had much shot at it.
Pink Ball wrote:I don’t understand snooker’s aversion to major cities. When last did we have a tournament in Birmingham? Liverpool? Leeds? Even Manchester has rarely had much shot at it.
lhpirnie wrote:Pink Ball wrote:I don’t understand snooker’s aversion to major cities. When last did we have a tournament in Birmingham? Liverpool? Leeds? Even Manchester has rarely had much shot at it.
The venues cost a lot more. It's probably as simple as that.