21.10.11

ALEX HIGGINS TROPHY UNDERWAY

After a day of amateur qualifying, the televised phase of the Alex Higgins Trophy - PTC8 - gets underway today.

The first TV match is Mark Williams v James Wattana followed by John Higgins against Ian Burns and Ronnie O'Sullivan v Aditya Mehta.

The TV element makes these PTCs slightly harder to predict than those played behind closed doors, albeit with streaming.

Mark Selby won the first televised PTC earlier this season and Neil Robertson the second.

It is likely another established name will win this one, though who that will be is anyone's guess.

Perhaps it will be O'Sullivan. He has already captured two PTCs this season and, though he described them as 'pointless' on Twitter yesterday, they do of course carry points that will help boost his ranking.

I suspect Alex Higgins would have approved if O'Sullivan won the first title bearing his name. I remember Ronnie winning the Irish Masters in Dublin one year and Alex going out into the arena to congratulate him.

They are cut from the same cloth, snooker wise: entertainers with vivid back stories. Box office, in short.

Good luck to all involved. Killarney is a picturesque setting, although arenas look much the same to TV audiences wherever tournaments are staged.

Here is the Eurosport schedule.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

hope jimmy white wins it.

he and alex were cut from the same cloth and i think it would be fitting if he won the title named after his great friend.

Anonymous said...

Great work Dave. Keep the information comming and well done to all involved in World Snooker for bring snooker to Ireland and more so Killarney....Sean

Anonymous said...

im getting pedal cyclists ?

147 said...

Dave you could do better with the background image on your blog

Dave H said...

It's back on at 6.20pm

Anonymous said...

The current background is better than the last one, in that it's much more passive, so if Dave is determined to have a picture on his blog then the current one is acceptable. He should probably make the "I am the assistant editor..." blurb and tweets a different colour though, because it is virtually unreadable in black.

Anonymous said...

im now getting a repeat of ronnie losing

Betty Logan said...

Am I the only one surprised at Dave Hendon's tweet: "Janie, Adam Wicheard is one of the pink army isn't he?"

I don't see why a snooker player's sexuality should be anybody's business other than his own, but if it is to become a discussion point can we please drop the derogatory slang? If you want to know if someone is gay, David, please just say "Is Adam Wicheard gay?". Professional sport is still way behind society in general when it comes to acceptance of homosexual men, and players do read what you write and latch onto what you say Dave, so derogatory slang phrases just reinforces the homophobic mindset in the game. I don't want to tell you what you should be writing, but personally speaking, I think you could do more in this regard, since well written pieces can force people to evaluate their beliefs and prejudices, and sport journalists who write about snooker do have a part to play in helping to create an environment that is more accepting of gay snooker players.

Anonymous said...

The background image is making me fee queasy!

Anonymous said...

The current background image is much better than the last one.

JAMIE O'REILLY said...

Hi David. A great event sofar. I am sure that Alex Higgins will be proud. Watching fom above, as I am sure, he is.

Anonymous said...

Crowds look poor. Think theres a bit of the "brazil resort" syndrome in play here.

Killarney is as about as remote a location as you could choose.

If that tournament was held nearer Dublin, there would be good crowds there.

Dave H said...

The pink army is what Paul Mount's OnQ Promotions team is known as, hence the question to Janie Watkins who works for them

Anonymous said...

It would have helped if the Alex Higgins event had been held in the right Ireland for a start! I'm sure this event would have been well supported in Belfast, and a couple of NI lads are through to the final day. Maybe Mark Allen will be motivated into doing something this event, because he's falling way behind where he should be at this stage of his career given his talent.

jamie brannon said...

Don't agree with O'Sullivan's view that these PTC events are lame, but in a ideal snooker it would've been nice to see them punctuated by more prestigious tournaments.

Maybe when the Hearn revolution has been more established this will be the case.

Janie Watkins said...

@ Betty Logan

ROFL. That's made my day!

Everyone on Twitter talking about this.

Talk about wrong end of the Stick!!!

The PINK ARMY is on the march in Killarney.

Adam's girlfriend will be pleased to hear of your concern.

Anonymous said...

dave, the commentator said the other day you helped ken write a book. surely ken can hold a pencil.....













seriously, hope its a good read

Anonymous said...

i am fairly sure (going by betsys previous comments on here) that HE knew full well what dave was talking about, but was trying to be funny. i didnt laugh.

Janie Watkins said...

Killarney is a great place to visit. It was fun for the 6 Reds and previous invite pro-am weekends and a good party weekend, but I don't think the venue is suited to a Main Tour event.

It's a hard venue to set up and I can see from Twitter that players are complaining of spectator movement and noise, while others are saying the audiences are smaller than anticipated.

However it's a long way from anywhere, long distance for players and fans to travel.

PTC could serve the sport by going to towns and cities to provide snooker for fans who don't normally see much live snooker, but not right off the end of the map!

Belfast would certainly be a good place for a PTC.

Anonymous said...

I suspect the "pink army" reply from Betty Logan was internet trolling/fishing at its most potent.
A pleasing catch across all social networking sites by a modern day genius of the keyboard.

Anonymous said...

hi Betsy 1049. you forgot to add your name.

oh, and id already mentioned it was meant....

Anonymous said...

be a good idea for eurosport to run a continual ticker when they change the schedule to inform people turning over for the next batch of snooker only to find a guy prancing about on skis.