Wednesday, December 25, 2024
HomeSnookerHigh 5: higher occasions that might launch a brand new snooker season

High 5: higher occasions that might launch a brand new snooker season

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The 2024/25 snooker season has already commenced with Ali Carter rising with the primary title final week in Leicester.

The Captain triumphed within the rating occasion model of Championship League Snooker with a 3-1 defeat of Jackson Web page within the last.

It was Carter’s sixth profession rating success, taking him into equal fifteenth on the all-time winners checklist alongside the likes of reigning world champion Kyren Wilson.

Whereas it was a very good achievement and a fantastic begin to the brand new time period, there can be an enormous part of snooker followers who wouldn’t have paid a lot discover.

With a monotonous, repetitive, and albeit boring format, Championship League Snooker took 21 days to finish (over a 24-day interval).

There have been moments of pleasure, together with David Gilbert’s magnificent escape from his group in Stage One.

However by and enormous, the event doesn’t supply a lot in the best way of leisure and is an uninspiring method to begin a contemporary marketing campaign.

It’s curious that it has successfully grow to be a practice to launch a brand new season with this occasion, given the way it hardly generates any publicity in any respect.

Okay, there’s a hole in the summertime schedule and the Championship League can simply fill that void – particularly when it’s so troublesome to organise venues and broadcasters.

But it appears unusual {that a} sport would readily select to start issues with a whimper, somewhat than with a bang.

Right here then, in no explicit order, are 5 potential tournaments that could possibly be higher suited to stirring up a direct frenzy with followers.

Champion of Champions

Maybe the obvious higher choice to launch a brand new snooker season is the Champion of Champions.

The Champion of Champions has been a terrific event on the annual schedule since 2013, with Ronnie O’Sullivan a document four-time champion.

The invitation occasion boasts all the most important trophy winners from the earlier 12 months on the calendar.

Staging it at the beginning of the season, somewhat than in its typical mid-campaign slot round November, would assure a lineup of all the prior season’s extra necessary winners.

The lineup would comprise a lot of the finest gamers on this planet, which may be a simpler method to entice supporters again following the post-World Championship break.

Tour Championship

As issues stand, the Tour Championship has grow to be the common penultimate rating occasion on the schedule.

Nonetheless, the truth that it’s staged simply earlier than the World Championship does depart it open to an anomaly of types.

The Tour Championship’s lineup is predicated on the one-year rankings, with the highest 12 from that checklist having certified for an absorbing version in Manchester in early-April.

Ronnie O'Sullivan Mark WilliamsRonnie O'Sullivan Mark Williams
Mark Williams beat Ronnie O’Sullivan within the 2024 Tour Championship last. Picture credit score: WST

However with the one-year rankings commencing at the beginning of a season, it implies that the large factors which can be on supply in Sheffield for the World Championship by no means rely.

One potential method to repair this subject is to maneuver the Tour Championship to after the World Championship, the place it may act as an ideal method to begin a brand new season.

Just like the Champion of Champions, it additionally ensures the involvement of a number of marquee names.

Shanghai Masters

This season, the Shanghai Masters has been moved from its acquainted slot in September to the center of July.

That makes it the second event of the 2024/25 snooker season, and there can be many supporters who ignored Championship League Snooker however can be returning to look at this competitors.

The Chinese language non-ranking occasion options the highest 16 from the official two-year world rankings checklist, plus the subsequent 4 highest-ranked Chinese language gamers and 4 further wildcards.

The Shanghai Masters is arguably China’s most interesting event – boasting a hefty prize fund, a very good environment, and all the time a fantastic lineup.

British Open

One optimistic facet of Championship League Snooker is it ensures that each participant on the World Snooker Tour has the chance to enter.

That, in fact, is the case with all rating occasions, however with the reintroduction of the tiered qualifying system at a variety of tournaments this season, the chance for these additional down the rankings to characteristic on the venue levels has doubtlessly grow to be much more restricted.

That doesn’t essentially must be the case with the British Open.

This event is one in all solely two on the calendar – the opposite being the Shoot Out – that comes with a random, FA Cup-style, draw for every spherical.

An occasion that doesn’t depend on rating lists and which most gamers and followers already get pleasure from, this could possibly be an attractive opener.

A world group occasion

There hasn’t been a World Cup in snooker since 2019, when the Scottish pairing of John Higgins and Stephen Maguire secured glory in Wuxi.

The reality is that the more moderen codecs for the World Cup weren’t notably gratifying, however that doesn’t imply {that a} new association couldn’t be.

The prospect of gamers representing their international locations is commonly passion-inducing, and that is an occasion that could possibly be staged in numerous international locations with quite a few choices in mainland Europe particularly.

Don’t need a World Cup yearly? No downside. Flip it right into a biennial event with a distinct worldwide occasion within the alternating years.

How about including a Ryder Cup impressed occasion between the UK and the Remainder of the World?

That definitely can be a extra exhilarating method to a begin a brand new snooker season.

Featured picture credit score: WST

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