According to the Xinhua news agency, Chinese administrators are planning to radically increase the number of tournaments staged in China.
“We are working on bringing ten main tour events to China,” said Zhang Xiaoning, director of the Multi-ball Games Administrative Centre.
This seems absurd in the short term, but such is the snooker boom in China that a few years down the road it may not be that fanciful.
Negotiations are well advanced for a ranking tournament in Shanghai next season and there are hopes for invitation events as well.
“The China Open is a door for Chinese players,” Zhang said. “Playing against the big names helps them know where they are going to go and how good they can be. They are on their way to becoming professionals.
“Everybody sees their improvement. It has given us the confidence to increase investment in the sport and import more international tournaments to China.”
Players are slowly coming round to the view that China is where it's at.
There is money to be made not just in tournaments but also from exhibitions and personal appearances.
The professional circuit has been a rather cosy, largely British dominated entity for 30 years but times appear to be changing.
2 comments:
We are going from the sublime to the ridiculous.
The only way to schedule 10 tournaments in China, would be to have a year-long season, akin to Tennis, and drop them in over the months. I would certainly agree with that idea.
I would like a year-long season and have a Asian leg over two months in the summer, whereby the players play tournaments in Thailand, China, Thailand and Australia. It cannot be too long for this to happen?
I certainly want to see more tournaments, as I've always said, but unless the schedule is right, this will not work. Start by asking Ronnie O'Sullivan.
Thanks, Joe
I think this is great news for snooker and to make a note on the comment above - why should snooker bnot move forward like Tennis has? Lots of tournaments, lots of players and the ability to select tournaments is great for a sport.
Cheers
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