Green baize legend Steve Davis believes the World Series will help spread the snooker word across Europe.Davis, 51, turned professional 30 years ago and has 28 ranking titles to his name, including six World Championship crowns.
He makes his World Series debut in Warsaw, Poland this weekend.
In the 1980s, Davis and his manager, Barry Hearn, promoted invitation events in countries new to snooker which went on to stage fully fledged ranking tournaments - including China and Thailand.
And Davis believes the game can only benefit by taking tournaments to countries where snooker has grown in popularity in recent years thanks to Eurosport’s extensive coverage of the professional circuit.
“What the World Series does is to take top flight snooker to countries who have not had a great deal of exposure,” he said.
“The last leg in Berlin was a huge success and hopefully, Warsaw will be the same.
“Snooker has become a little bit stale in the UK and the aim is for Europe to become a catalyst to kick-start the game again. It’s all about making the world sit up and take notice.”
Davis faces Polish champion Rafal Jewtuch in the first round tomorrow.
The action starts live on Eurosport2 at 1pm UK time.
8 comments:
Go Rafał!
go steve
Rafał You can win!
World Series events across Europe are a great boost and a reward for the hard working players, officials and associations in the countries.
The EBSA, the European Association has around 40 member countries now with all countries now competing in European events.
Poland actually have a very very good young junior - Michel Zielinski - so remember the name. If he could get some extra experience and tournaments in the UK then I reckon he could be the first Main Tour Player for Poland one day soon.
More good news from Europe is that St. Petersburg will play host to the 2009 European Team Championship. 23-29 March 2009. Make a date in your diaries, another great EBSA organised event featuring events for Men, Ladies and Masters. Watch out for Russia ladies team who are rapidly improving.
Michał 'Michel' Zieliński pewnie będzie wdzięczny za opinię Mrs Watkins, a my Polacy jesteśmy wdzięczni za to, że zauważa się naszych reprezantantów w UK.
A'propos... Go Rafał Jewtuch! Go Mariusz Sirko! Go Rafał Górecki! Go Ding Junhui! ;)
The world series is a wonderful concept because there is so much interest around Europe (I can certainly speak for Denmark). Next month Higgins is visiting Copenhagen to do a show match and the tickets were gone in seconds which could possibly bring the world series to Denmark in 2009. I am absolutely delighted to get the opportunity to catch my idols in my own neighbourhood. Amazing!
Mu pleasure "anonymous" sorry about the spelling but I do not have the full accented symbols on the blog!
Well in Denmark you have Daniel Kandi - who is a sort of high speed Alex Higgins/Tony Drago type player, very talented, very careless and a very good musician also!
I think probably Denmark's Rune Kampe made the most impact on the international scene, competing up to Challenge Tour level, and also Allan Norvark - again please excuse my spelling.
Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Iceland would all be very good venues for the World Series, with strong established players and organisers. Switzerland is another obvious venue as are Belgium, France and Holland, all very strong European snooker countries.
Further afield I'd like to see events in Doha, Dubai, to assist further development in the Gulf Countries
and don't forget Africa. Egypt, Mauritius, South Africa are all keen snooker venues.
Everyone has forgotten about Poland... As usual...
Tournament in Poland is realy good, but polish players... It's different cup of tea. They can't play beside tv cameras. It was first time for them, exept Rafał Jewtuch, but even two times isn't enough to play professional snooker. They're very good players, I think, exept chairman Murat. They play awesome offensive shots. Polish champion Jewtuch has got a training 147 break, other top polish players, exept chairman Murat, aren't worst.
This defeat was odd. Ussual it won't happened, but the conditions was strange for Rafał, Mariusz and Rafał. Exept chairman Murat, of course.
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