The Shanghai Masters, the first ranking event of the new season, will be sponsored by Roewe, the Chinese joint venture partner of Rover.
John Higgins, the reigning world champion, and China's own Ding Junhui attended a press conference in Shanghai yesterday as the deal was unveiled.
There's no doubt snooker in China is a boom industry and, with both ranking events there guaranteed for five years, this area represents the sport's immediate future.
8 comments:
Dave,
Are they sponsoring the China Open as well?
Thanks, Joe
I think that's still Honghe Industrial
That is great news that the Shanghi Masters has secured a sponsor - it leaves just the Northern Ireland Trophy and the Welsh Open out of all the world ranking events this coming season looking for a sponsor.
I think it is quite baffling since Regal were forced to withdraw sponsorship of the Welsh Open that World Snooker have failed to negotiate a sponser especially with the extensive coverage on British Eurosport, Eurosport International and BBC Wales and good crowds especially towards the latter end of the event. David, do you know if the event will still be played at the Newport Centre in 2008?
I'm sure it will be, yes
Dave,
Good to see Ricky Walden picking up a trophy at the weekend pro-am.
After talking up Selby for so long and, finally, seeing him breakthrough, maybe this season will be Walden's turn.
By the way, it was a good turn-out. But most of the top players seemed to still be on their summer holiday as most got knocked out relatively early.
Thanks, Joe
I watched Walden turn over John higgins a couple of seasons ago, and to be truthful I thought he was awsome, maybe this is his year. At his level of game I think he should just enjoy his snooker and not think about his game too much...because from what I have seen there is nothing wrong with it...he's a pottin machine.
sponsors will only come in if they see potential. the characters are not in the game anymore. Players take themselves to seriously and they want perfect conditions and silence to play in. To hell with the spectators. The trouble is young players lock themselves away practicin 10 hours a day at snooker and 0 hrs given to actually living and comunicating. their are some exceptions like michael holt, jimmy white or dominic dale but far too few players actually care about entertaining the crowd. bring back reardon higgins virgo taylor i say
I agree sponsors will only back and entertaining game ....Just need Ding to develop a personality and bingo...what about replacing the highest break prize with the most entertaining match prize?? Could help. The recent grand prix up here in scotland last season proved that the wpbsa dont mind experimenting with the format a bit when they introduced a round robin type event which I found very enjoyable.
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