John Higgins, Mark Selby and Ding Junhui have not entered the Bahrain Championship following the clash of dates with the Partypoker.com Premier League.
They had little choice. They signed contracts to play in the Premier League months ago but their absence is obviously bad news for the new ranking event and will harm their ranking positions.
However, it’s good news for Matthew Stevens, Jamie Cope and Ken Doherty as they are seeded through to the venue.
The tournament will be broadcast live on Eurosport from November 8-15.
4 comments:
I assume that Steve Davis will be out of the qualifiers too? Or could he play that and then withdraw to gain extra ranking points?
An unfortunate situation - but totally avoidable in my view. Whilst it would be easy to blame World Snooker outright - they could have arranged this event in the early part of next year where there is little in the way of tournaments - I think all sides involved need to communicate with each other better to prevent this from happening again.
In the end, it's the players who lose out, in terms of crucial ranking points and prize money. Even more so in this case for Ding Junhui, whose bad run of form shows no sign of ending and now puts him in danger of dropping out of the Top 16.
Sam T
Well, three players lost out, firstly in rankingpoints but the
schedule is packed.
The calendar must be freed up and it is high time to use Pontins and
the academy or any other arena simontaneously to do two qualifications the same week.
Players haven´t had so much action as now for a very long time and a
new rankingtournament is great
especially in the mioddle east where there still are a sponsor-
friendly climate.
Livebetting, and broadcasting with
one still camera might grease a few
hands, while the shine of snooker as a uniqe form of sport fades.
A second players organisation could
be the end of snooker as we know it.
It is great news that the Bahrain Championship has joined the calendar as a further world ranking event but, it's a shame that the event collides with a Premier League week - especially when there are gaps post christmas like between the Welsh Open and China Open.
This must have been a hard decision for the players involved in the Premier League to skip Bahrain and the ranking points on offer but, in hindsight this event has been running for well over 20 years and benefits from full houses every week and live SKY TV coverage during the League campaign and will no doubt continue to be a success for another number of years where Bahrain could be a one off event.
While Matthew Stevens, Ken Doherty and Jamie Cope benefit greatly from the above trio not entering as will Gerard Greene, Michael Holt and Ricky Walden being spared a qualifying round, the first round will see three players seeded through to the second round as the event is, effectively, a 93 man draw. It is time that World Snooker implemented a system as Snooker Scene has recommended for years by inviting players to fill these vacant places in the draw.
I appreciate the difficultly could be in who you invite but, this could be implemented at the start of the season with a ruling that maybe invites the three highest players who were relegated from the tour the previous season to play or the three highest ranked players on the PIOS by a certain date to compete.
You never see gaps in the draw at the commencement of a major tennis championship, if a player withdraws on the eve due to injury etc his/her place is offered to a lucky loser - the highest ranked player to have lost in the qualifying competition.
Ryan
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