Snooker: Snookered, Split, or Bust!?

Last month, snooker lost two of its major sponsors. At the time I was going to write an article, but couldn't really think of anything different to say than what had already been said in the mainstream press or what had been said on other cue sport blogs.

888.com have pulled out of the World Championships and Saga Insurance have pulled out of the Masters (I didn't bother linking to their sites for obvious reasons! :o) ). This is a pretty sorry state of events for snooker but I don't think it should be too unexpected with the current state of the world markets. Sponsors are pulling out of golf tournaments like this one here and tennis tournaments like this one here. Some high profile football clubs are even struggling get shirt sponsorship deals!! Why should snooker be any different?

I've often thought that the current format of ranking events simply doesn't work in today's day and age. Snooker could survive quite happily in the 80s and early 90s before the globalisation boom and emergence of international markets. Sponsors want to appeal to a global market these days and because there are so few snooker events worldwide, sponsors simply aren't getting the exposure they desire from the sport we love.

Over the years I've wondered how snooker could become global, and it's difficult for me to see this happening with snooker in its current state. I've consistently seen articles and blog posts blaming the WPSBA board when tournaments are lost due to lack of sponsorship, conflicts are created due to poor organisation and lawyers are getting involved due to lack of communication. The board, after the process of being elected, are, ....I suppose, at a push, responsible. But for me, the real people that are responsible for the current state of snooker are the players themselves. They all have a vote and can change their board at a moment's notice, the players have chosen who are in power. If the game was in such a terrible state, one of two things would happen.

1. Either the players would replace the board, or
2. The section of players that are so against the current system would simply no longer be able to stand it anymore and would break away from the current tour and form a new one.

I think, and hope, the latter will happen, ....eventually!

I know this is a bit simplistic and normally a lot would happen before one of these two events happen, ...but eventually, one of those two outcomes, ....would be THE outcome!

I think snooker has the potential to be a successful global, multiple tour, big money sport. I've often thought that snooker should be trying to use other successful sports as role models to try to make snooker successful. But the real people with the power to change the game, the players, don't seem to want to take chances or think "out of the box". It's easy to say let's change the format, but I think it would be very brave for the current generation of players to be the pioneers in trying something different.

When snooker was renegotiating the World Championship venue a few years back, I was one of those people hoping World Snooker would break away from Sheffield and possibly move to London or end up being a worldwide rotating venue. I really believe it was the wrong decision to keep world snooker in Sheffield, although I agree that the venue is excellent and I've been there on a number of occasions to see the World Championships. I never wanted to venue to die, snooker could have staged a different tournament there, but I was hoping the World Snooker Championships would go global, I think it would have been a great boost for the sport.

I'm also one of those people that believe multiple professional tours are needed all around the world. I like the golf model where there are multiple professional golf tours worldwide and then 4 major championships. It's interesting to know that golf tours came about almost accidentally by players splitting away from the original PGA tour. Now there are more than 20 professional tours around the world. The 20 tours are not on a equal level though and tend to be defined over tiers where you have:

• 1st: PGA Tour
• 2nd: European Tour
• 3rd and 4th: Champions Tour; LPGA Tour
• 5th - 7th: Asian Tour; Japan Golf Tour; LPGA of Japan Tour

source: Wikipedia (not a great source, but a source)

It's interesting to see the LPGA tour is ranked above some of the men's tours and the tiers are purely defined through financial reward.

I don't think for a second snooker can support more than 20 professional tours but maybe they can support half a dozen round the world. Something like the following might be sustainable in the long term:

• UK & Ireland tour - tier 1
• European tour - tier 2
• Asian tour - tier 2
• Oceania tour - tier 3
• Americas tour - tier 3
• African tour - tier 4

I've also added different tiers using the tier methodology used in golf with the tier 1 tour being the most lucrative going to tier 4 that's the least lucrative. Some of it guess work of course! :o)

From the different tours you would need members to co-sanction an official world snooker ranking system that would somehow need to be weighted depending on the tier the tour is in.

The world snooker rankings would determine who plays in the "4 majors" per year, yes, ...very like golf (and tennis as that is structured in a similar manner)! The top x players from each tour would battle it out in these 4 elite tournaments and each major would be played in different parts of the world where the tours are based. We could have our 4 snooker majors in:

• UK
• Mainland Europe
• Asia
• Oceania or America.

Then we would have a truly global sport! And how does this happen? Well I think it would be a very slow process possibly initiated by a split in the current professional ranks.

I've discussed this on Dave Hendon's snookerscene blog and on the World Series Snooker forum where John Higgins and his manager Pat Mooney themselves are contributing to the discussion!

Snooker: Belgian Open

A new pro-am tournament starts in Duffel, Belgium from 19th-21st September.

The top professionals who will be competing are Stephen Maguire, Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, John Higgins, Neil Robertson, Graeme Dott, Mark Allen, Mark Williams, Ken Doherty, Matthew Stevens and John Parrott. This really is an excellent line-up!

If you can't get to Belguim for these dates then there's no need to panic as you can watch the tournament online at cuesport.tv I've had a look at some of the coverage from some of the other other events this cue sports channel covers and the quality really is first class!! The cost is £8 for the 3 days.

More information about the tournament can be found here. Win free cuesport.tv passes here! But be quick, the closing date is Monday.

Snooker: World Series, Berlin

As you may have read elsewhere, the World Series of Snooker is now well underway. The first event was played in Jersey and Higgins was the victor, beating Mark Selby in the final.

The World Series of Snooker is the brainchild of John Higgins and his manager Pat Mooney. The next event is to be held in Berlin, Germany, and will feature professionals John Higgins, Graeme Dott, Stephen Maguire and Shaun Murphy. The top amateurs who will be trying to beat the top stars are Chris McBreen, Lasse Münstermann, Hans Blanckaert and Patrick Einsle. From what I remember, Lasse Münstermann and Patrick Einsle have briefly played on the main professional tour. The challengers are all excellent players and if they're on top of their game and nerves don't get to them, they all have a good chance of beating the professionals. The draw is as follows:

Graeme Dott (Scotland) v Chris McBreen (New Zealand)
John Higgins (Scotland) v Lasse Münstermann (Germany)
Stephen Maguire (Scotland) v Hans Blanckaert (Belgium)
Shaun Murphy (England) v Patrick Einsle (Germany)

Dott/McBreen v Higgins/Münstermann
Maguire/Blanckaert v Murphy/Einsle

Einsle has been Germany's best player for some time now and Lasse Münstermann used to be Germany's number 1 star. Lasse is as ambidextrous as the great Ronnie O'Sullivan but you rarely see him using the other hand in the top matches. Hans is also a great player with a very wristy cueing action. It's possible that we could get some fireworks and comments from him in his match. :o)

Unfortunately I know nothing about Chris McBreen, but I'm looking forward to seeing him play.

All the action can be seen live on Eurosport on Saturday and Sunday evening (12th and 13th July).

You can get to the dedicated website for the World Series of Snooker by clicking here.

Snooker: World Championships - Under way!

Finally 17 days of snooker are under way at the Crucible in Sheffield. There are some great matches lined up for the opening round and it's as hard as ever to pick a winner.

At the time of writing some matches are already complete. Most noticeably Higgins beat Stevens 10-5. This was definitely one of the draws of the round. Up to now, Higgins hasn't had a great season and neither has Stevens, so Higgins needed to prove a point and re-affirm his authority in the game and Stevens needed a couple of wins to reclaim his top 16 place. Early on in the match Stevens played well, but Higgins was solid all day. At one point, the start of the second session, it looked like Stevens might make a comeback but again, Higgins showed his true class to close out the match. Stevens needs some really good results in next season's qualifiers to arrest his decline in the game. A lot of players and pundits feel that Stevens should still be in the top 16, and ability wise he should be. But he needs to re-apply himself, possibly change something in his life so he can get back to doing what he does best.

Neil Robertson was way too strong for Nigel Bond and eased into round 2 with a 10-4 victory. He played really solidly all the way through the match.

A couple of the matches I'm really looking forward to are Hendry vs Allen, Fu vs Junhui and of course Ronnie vs Chuang.

I think Mark Allen might upset Hendry. Allen is improving rapidly and Hendry simply isn't the force he used to be. Whoever wins, I'm really looking forward to watching the match which starts today.

Fu vs Ding is a really difficult one to call. Fu has recently beaten Ding in a ranking event but you could say Ding has more talent. Over the last couple of seasons, Ding has had real problems with his temperament and needs to keep himself under control and play well if he's going to beat Marco Fu.

I don't think I've seen Chuang play before, but I hope Ronnie plays well and Chuang pushes Ronnie all the way. It's always such a pleasure to see Ronnie play, normally it's irrelevant who he's playing against.

Snooker: 2008 World Championship Draw

Here's the draw for the 2008 World Championships:

Ken Doherty Ire v Liang Wenbo Chn
John Higgins Sco v Matthew Stevens Wal
Ali Carter Eng v Barry Hawkins Eng
Ding Junhui Chn v Marco Fu HK
Mark Selby Eng v Mark King Eng
Peter Ebdon Eng v Jamie Cope Eng
Neil Robertson Aus v Nigel Bond Eng
Steve Davis Eng v Stuart Bingham Eng
Ryan Day Wal v Michael Judge Eng
Ronnie O'Sullivan Eng v Liu Chuang Chn
Mark Williams Wal v Mark Davis Eng
Graeme Dott Sco v Joe Perry Eng
Shaun Murphy Eng v Dave Harold Eng
Stephen Lee Eng v Joe Swail NI
Stephen Hendry Sco v Mark Allen NI
Stephen Maguire Sco v Anthony Hamilton Eng

Amongst the noticeable draws are Higgins vs Stevens. Stevens couldn't have wished for a tougher draw as he's in serious need of ranking points, at least he made it to the Crucible.

Ding Junhui and Marco Fu have to face each other in the first round. Marco has to fancy his chances after getting the better of Ding in the big matches this season. Ding needs to win the World Championship this time round to beat Hendry's record of the youngest ever winner. With his form this season, I can't see him doing it.

The new young 17 year old Chinese sensation, Liu Chuang, plays Ronnie. Ronnie has already beat Chuang in the season opener and Chuang couldn't have asked for a more testing first round match. I don't think I've seen Chuang play before to I'm looking forward to seeing this match. It's worth pointing out that Chuang beat Dominic Dale in the final qualifying round, a great achievement as Dominic has won a ranking event this season.

Mark Selby is to play the man who beat Jimmy White, Mark King. Selby has had an amazing season so far and had a brilliant tournament last year getting to the final against Higgins. Could this be Selby's year!?

Snooker: Selby's First Ranking Title

Mark Selby claimed his first ranking event of his career in the Welsh Open on Sunday with a great win over Ronnie O'Sullivan.

The first session was a bit scrappy with Ronnie really struggling to find his A game. I thought Mark should have capitalised a lot more and when it finished 4-4, I feared Mark had probably blown a good chance to get a good lead and put himself in a commanding position for the evening session.

I was expecting Ronnie to come back a better player in the evening session, and he did, winning 4 of the first 5 frames in style, and leaving him one frame from victory. To me, Selby looked dead and buried and I was pretty astonished with the fightback that ensued.

Selby said he had to resort to his B game and ground out the next 3 frames to take it to 8 each. Ronnie came flying out of the blocks in the decider and, early on in the frame, looked like he was going to blow Selby's fightback to smithereens, but he broke down and Selby knocked in a break taking the match to the last 3 or 4 reds. Ronnie got back in, tried to move a red off the cushion but missed a solid cannon. He got down quickly to back double the same red, a match winner if it went in, not necessarily a match loser if he missed but the white flew round the table and went in off! This left Selby with a sitter and he didn't need a second invitation.

Ronnie was clearly devestated and seemed to struggle to comprehend his loss. The Welsh interviewer/commentator didn't help, "Great match, highest break, congratulations", I was shouting DUCK!! at the TV in fear that Ronnie was going to hit him! What a plonker. Ronnie came out with some comments which I think were due to the heat of the moment: "Mark was very tactical" and "I don't know if Mark's talented; he plays a very negative game. He doesn't take a ball on unless he's going to leave it safe.". The media have obviously stirred the comments up a bit, but Mark has subsequently come out and dismissed them with diplomacy I don't think even he's used to. Let's face it, it can't be easy giving a live interview when you've just lost a major final from a very commanding position.

Selby didn't only beat Ronnie at the Welsh Open, he beat 3 other past World Champions in Hendry, Higgins and Doherty which has to make his vctory even sweeter. I'm really pleased for Selby, he's a very funny guy as I found out when he came to the Swiss Open a couple of years ago. He can stand up in front of an audience and tell jokes all night long. He's a fantastic character in the world of snooker, ...not a bad player too!!

Well done Mark!

Snooker: Ding Gets the Better of Higgins

Ding Junhui is back! In a ding dong battle with Higgins, Ding fought back from 3-1 down to level at 4-4. Higgins was playing reasonably well and knocked in breaks of 71, 73 and 62. But his cuing action let him down a couple of times as he seemed to hit across the ball. Ding took full advantage with breaks of 74, 54, 135, and 96. The last 2 frames went to Ding for him to win 6-4.

Once again Ding looked great when when in amongst the balls and the beat Higgins in the Masters is a yet another big scalp for Ding. He plays Marco Fu in the next round.

Dott managed to blow a 5-3 lead against Stephen Lee in the other first round match yesterday. Dott's game seemed to disintegrate a little only for him to get it back at 5-5. In the last frame Dott made a great break of 61 and was looking favorite. But he then let Lee in and he came back with a magnificent 64 break to win the match 6-5

Graeme Dott blamed the defeat on a bad bounce off the cushion when when on 61. But surely he can't take anything away from Stephen Lee's break when under immense pressure.

Snooker: Masters Preview

One of my favorite tournaments starts on Sunday, the Masters. Staged in London at the Wembley Arena, the tournament has always seemed to exude class and glamor. For over 20 years it was staged at the Wembley Conference Center which has witnessed some unbelievable Masters snooker. With great crowds exceeding 2000, the atmosphere can be electric for one player and demoralizingly daunting for the other as Ding Junhui unfortunately found out the hard way last year. The crowds can destroy players long after the tournament finishes, more so it seems here than any other venue, ....again, as Ding Junhui found out last year!

Gold always comes to mind when I think of the Masters, probably because of the years it was sponsored by Benson & Hedges. Flowers! With flower beds flanking the table on either side. Jimmy White and Kirk Stevens dressed up sharp in their shiny white suits, and who can forget Kirk's fantastic maximum! The one table situation and top 16 only invitation format (with the exception of a couple of wildcards which are Marco Fu and Barry Hawkins this year) seems to add that extra prestige to the tournament.

As a huge fan of Stephen Hendry when I was younger, I never missed a match, and there were a lot of matches to miss! Hendry, almost 6 years unbeaten at Wembley, won in his debut season in 1989, went on to win 5 consecutive titles and eventually lost in 1994 in the final, ...in the final frame, against Alan McManus. I was distraught, as I'm sure Hendry was too. McManus was the first player to win the current trophy, the previous one having been given to Hendry for winning it for the previous 5 years.

Another player that was almost single handedly destroyed by the Masters was Mike Hallett. Now a regular commentator on Eurosport, in 1988 he was thrashed by Steve Davis 9-0 in the final, ...yes, whitewashed in the final. Mike probably thought that it couldn't get any worse until 1991 where again, he got to the final. Hallett was playing Hendry, playing well and led 7-0 and 8-2. He only needed one more frame to take trophy away from Hendry who had won the 2 previous seasons. It was not to be, Mike's game abandoned him and Hendry staged a brilliant comeback to win 9-8! If I remember rightly, that wasn't the last of the disappointments for Mike that evening, upon returning home with his wife, their house had been burgled. Talk about getting kicked while you're down!!

Back to the present and hopefully Ding will not succumb to the Masters' demons, who can forget his magnificent maximum last year. That gave him the record for the youngest player make a televised maximum! He hasn't had a great season so far but he's so talented and looks so good amongst the balls that I really want to see him do well. However, it's going to be tough for him at the Masters this year, his first round match is against current world champion John Higgins who also hasn't had a great season so far. They both have something to prove and I think this will be a classic match.

The wildcards, Marco Fu and Barry Hawkins are playing Steve Davis and Ryan Day respectively, I expect these to be tough matches too. The Masters' great, Hendry, is playing Selby who is playing some brilliant snooker and is flying up the rankings. I think Selby is going to carry on his great form and beat Hendry in his tournament, unless Hendry can find some divine inspiration.

Two out of form players, Doherty and Williams are matched up in the first round and I think this will be a tight scrappy affair. Doherty thinks his newly born son will give him inspiration at the Masters and he thinks he can go on and win it! Williams looked to have found some of his old form in the UK championship before Christmas and I fancy him to beat Doherty, ...just!

The biggest match-up of the first round has to be Ronnie O'Sullivan vs Stephen Maguire, provisionally ranked numbers 1 and 2 in the world! Maguire won't want Ronnie destroying him again so I think this could be a lot closer than the UK final.

Spare a thought for Jimmy White who will miss his first Masters for many a year. Currently he's not on form at all and struggling to stay on the main tour next year. I dare say his fans will miss him as much as he will miss Wembley! And while on that note, ...don't forget 3 times Masters winner Paul Hunter. Who can forget his constant Plan Bs!!! Personally, I think he used to plan to be way behind after the first session on purpose!!! ;o) May he rest in peace.

All in all, I'm quite looking forward to Sunday, let's hope Wembley can produce some more magic!!

Snooker: World Series To Be Launched!

This is great news that I've read on Snooker Scene's blog. Click here for the article.

It would be great to have more snooker players with this kind of foresight. More details are to be released in due course. I'm astonished at the claim that all these tournaments will be televised!! I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of the coverage on Eurosport. This isn't BBC quality coverage but it's certainly good coverage. I've heard Dave Hendon, Mike Hallet, Mike Smith and Joe Johnson all commentating on Eurosport and they're all very good knowledgeable commentators. Rolf Kalb (Wikipedia entry in German) is the German speaking commentator. A few of my German speaking friends have told he's quite good "but still learning his trade". I'm not too sure who commentates in the other languages that Eurosport broadcast in.

With this and the Championship League, there should be much much more snooker in the 2008/2009 season than in this season. Snooker may well be starting a new boom! Ronnie took home £100,000 for winning the UK Championship, a significant improvement over recent years.

Snooker: Higgins Out Ronnie Through

Jamie Cope thrashed John Higgins yesterday in the first round of the UK Championship. What I saw of the match, Higgins was missing some balls that he simply shouldn't be missing but Jamie looked really comfortable and completely unfazed as he eased to victory. Higgins has had a really bad start to the season and needs to pick it up for the second half of the season. Cope won 9-3.

Ronnie stuttered to a 9-6 victory against Michael Holt. He looked to be getting some strange bounces of the cushion and lost his temper by throwing his arm at a shot at one point. But Holt couldn't capitalise on Ronnie's patchy form and eventually Ronnie came home an easy winner.

Mark Allen started his match well against Mark Williams leading 5-3 overnight. Williams had to scrap for the last 2 frames of the session and will be pleased to on be 2 frames behind. Williams didn't play particularly badly, Allen played very well and didn't give his opponent many chances. It will be interesting to see what happens in this match.

In other matches, Nigel Bond and Ding Junhui are locked at 4-4 and Neil Robertson lost to his practice partner and friend Joe Perry by 9 frames to 6. It's been a pretty disappointing start to the season for both Robertson and Ding as well, they were 2 shining stars last season and Robertson really needs to get his game together. At least Ding, at the time of writing, is still in the tournament.

Snooker: Ranking Event Catch-Up

Apologies if you read my blog and expect reports immediately after matches/standard ranking events. Unfortunately I have to work for a living so I can't produce content as often as I would like to! Be sure to add my blog to your feed reader using the links to the top right of this page and you'll see immediately when new content is available.

We are already into our 4th ranking event of the season (the UK Championship) and the first 3 events have produced 3 surprise winners. Last year was an open season producing 6 different winners from the 7 ranking events. Neil Robertson was the only man to win more than one ranking event and many of the big names including Hendry, O'Sullivan, Davis, Doherty and Maguire could not manage a ranking event victory.

Our winners so far this year have been Dominic Dale with the Shanghai Masters, Marco Fu with the Grand Prix and Stephen Maguire with the Northern Ireland Trophy. All 3 winners have played exceptionally well to win their respective tournament which goes to show the kind of standard we're now getting from tournament to tournament. I've already talked about the Shanghai Masters and Grand Prix, but haven't said anything about Maguire winning in Northern Ireland.

Maguire played solid snooker throughout the even to take his first title since 2004. He must be delighted to back into the winner's circle as he had a serious dip in form throughout 2005 and 2006. Fergal O'Brien was a shock finalist but played some great snooker to get there; particularly against John Higgins where he was 4-3 down but knocked in 2 centuries to win 5-4.

Ronnie O'Sullivan had a moment of brilliance in a record breaking match against Ali Carter. He knocked in 5 centuries including a maximum, a feat that will be difficult to equal.

Now we're already onto the UK Championships, the second biggest tournament in the game. The shocks continue with Hendry, Ebdon and Doherty already out, ...and in an even bigger turn of events, Mark Williams has made it through to the next round! :o) At this moment in time, Higgins is 5-3 down to Jamie Cope but there's still a long way to go in these longer, first to 9 matches.

Hendry looked to get well beaten by new up and coming super star Mark Allen. Hendry seemed miffed in the interview, he thinks his game is great but his confidence is gone. Mark Allen was extremely happy with his win saying he "had just beaten my childhood hero!" I think Mark Allen will go a long way, I was at the 2004 European Championships in Austria when Mark Allen took the title and he certainly looked first class back then.

The Ebdon vs McCulloch match was a real tense affair. McCulloch was 5-0 down and came back to win 9-8. He was 8-7 up but Ebdon leveled with a good break. McCulloch showed great determination and nerve to knock in an 80+ break in the decider.

Could we have a differerent winner for each tournament this season, I'm looking forward to finding out.

Snooker: Ronnie Wins Again!

Once again Ronnie O'Sullivan has proved to be the Premier League king after defeating John Higgins 7-4 in the final of the PartyBets.com Premier League. He didn't have it so easy this year, his 24 match unbeaten run was broken in the league stages and he conceded 4 frames in the final. This is Ronnie's 4th successive victory in this tournament and looks as unbeatable as Hendry did in the Masters in the 90's.

Ronnie took home £83,000, consisting of a £50,000 winners cheque, £24,000 for frames won in the league stages and £9,000 for 9 centuries. When asked about his lack of tournament victories over the last couple of years, he replied that a "win is a win", and this tournament now ranks as one of the biggest on the snooker circuit. He said that he would rather win this one than the Northern Ireland Trophy or the Malta Cup. It certainly suits his game and temperament.

Ronnie played pretty solidly as did John Higgins, but John's ultimate downfall was the shot clock. He had trouble with it all the way through the tournament but no doubt he will be playing in the premier league next year and should be more accustomed to the format.

Ronnie disposed of an under performing Stephen Hendry in the semi-final and said after the match that he would have to play much better in the final to beat Higgins. Overall, Hendry had a reasonably good Premier League showing that his game is beginning to come back after deserting him for a few years. He could be a force to reckon with in the remaining ranking events this year, ...although at the time of writing he has just been beaten 9-4 by Mark Allen in the UK championships.

Ding had been playing so well that I thought he would overcome Higgins in the semi-final, but Ding didn't show the form he had in the league stages. Higgins' win wasn't just down to Ding playing badly though, it was Higgins' strongest performance under the shot clock which shows his champion qualities in pulling his best snooker out of the bag when it's required the most.

But congratulations to Ronnie, his first tournament victory in 9 months.

Snooker: Premier League

If you've been watching the premier league snooker, you will have seen some really great stuff over the last 10 weeks or so. As it stands now, the group phase is complete with Ding Junhui, Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan and John Higgins going through to the semi-final stage in Aberdeen on the 1st of December. The final is the following day and both the semis and the final will be televised live on Sky Sports. Here's how the table ended up.

Pos	Name	P	W	D	L	Frames W	Frames L	100+	Pts	Money won
1	Ding Junhui	6	4	1	1	25	11	12	9	£37,000
2	Stephen Hendry	6	4	1	1	20	16	3	9	£23,000
3	R. O'Sullivan	6	4	0	2	24	12	9	8	£33,000
4	John Higgins	6	2	2	2	17	19	3	6	£20,000
5	Steve Davis	6	2	1	3	15	21	1	5	£16,000
6	Jimmy White	6	0	3	3	13	23	0	3	£13,000
7	Neil Robertson	6	0	2	4	12	24	2	2	£14,000

In the final matches last night, Robertson played White to see who would come bottom of the group, Ding played Hendry to see who would come top of the group and Higgins played Davis to see who would take the final knockout place.

The Robertson White was a fairly average affair that finished 3-3. Both players were disappointed with their form in the groups stages. White thought he could have won a couple of previous matches when in good positions and Robertson simply never got to grips with the shot clock stating, "I definitely know how long 25 seconds are now!".

Then came the match of the evening, Ding versus Hendry. Ding was absolutely awesome, I think this is the best I've seen him play, and quite possibly just as good as I've ever seen Ronnie O'Sullivan play. Now all he needs to do is to learn how to play left handed! :o)

Ding opened the first 4 frames with breaks of 133, 87 (could easily have been a century), 136 and 138. During these first 4 frames Hendry didn't score a single point and Ding eventually amassed 495 points without a reply. This is a new record beating the old record 494 set by John Higgins against Ronnie O'Sullivan in the 2005 Grand Prix final.

After the first century, Hendry got out of his chair to congratulate Ding, I've never seen this before from Hendry. And after the third frame (I think it was the 3rd frame), Hendry was overheard by the commentary team mentioning that he hadn't potted a ball yet!! After the fourth frame, the cameras caught Hendry staring at the table with a rye smile on his face, shaking his head in disbelief. I caught myself doing the same but I was staring at my 50 inch telly! :o)

In the 5th and 6th frames Ding only managed a 40+ and 50+ break. I don't know, I was expecting greater things! When Hendry finally did manage to pot a ball in the 5th frame, the Scottish crowd went wild, but it didn't last long and Ding eventually won 6-0. Hendry only managed 41 points in the whole match, and many of those points were fouls that Ding had conceded. Not too surprisingly Hendry didn't stick around for an interview after the match. This result is quite important for snooker fans as it means Ding won't face Ronnie in the semi-final. If we get a Ding Ronnie final and they both play to the top of their game, ...it could be absolute cracker!


Top billing was Higgins versus Davis. This was a very important match as it was a fight for the last qualification spot. Higgins has had a very slow start to the premier league and has really struggled adjusting his rhythm to the shot clock. On the other hand, Davis seems to cope with it very well, has had much more experience with it, and generally seems to enjoy the up tempo format. Higgins was one point ahead in the table before the match so only needed a draw to qualify. Davis mention how only needing a draw to qualify should be piece of cake for Higgins, providing no silly mistakes are made and the manager doesn't use a rookie goal keeper... :o) The Scottish crowd certainly enjoyed Davis' remarks, ...obviously referring to England's disastrous match against Croatia in the final group match of England's Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. But back to the snooker, ...it wasn't a great match. Davis made some mistakes which allowed Higgins to stumble to a 3-0 lead. This meant Higgins had qualified. When at 3-0, Higgins seemed to lose concentration and Davis won the next 3 to draw the match.

After a couple of matches, I didn't think Higgins was going to qualify for the knockout phase. But like a true world champion, he managed to pull himself together and drag himself through. Higgins said the public will see a different Higgins in the knockout phase and I think we will too. One thing is for sure, he will have to play much better to beat the likes of Ding, Ronnie and Hendry. His semi final match will be against Ding.

Hendry came third in the group and looks a better player this year with his new cue. However, Ronnie absolutely loves this event and has thrashed Hendry before. I really think it's going to be Ding vs Ronnie final, and with all respect to Hendry and Higgins, I'm kind of hoping so too.

It's worth pointing out that so far Ding has had 12 centuries, 3 more than Ronnie, the next highest number of centuries in the competition is only 3 by Hendry and Higgins!!! I think it was mentioned that there was only 13 in total for the whole competition last year which means Ding has almost single handedly matched that number before playing in the knockout phase. The highest break so far was a magnificent 143 by Steve Davis in Derby, a record with the shot clock. Ding's total prize money so far is £37,000, more than what Maguire took home for winning the Northern Ireland Trophy, a ranking event. Come on WPBSA (or the WSA), pull your finger out!! The matchroom crowd certainly know how to stage a snooker event.

I'm really looking forward to the final weekend, I just know we're going to see some more great snooker!

Snooker: Premier League Snooker Kicks-Off on Thursday

This years Premier League Snooker starts on Thursday the 6th September. The first matches will be Jimmy White vs Ding Jun Hui and Ronnie O'Sullivan vs John Higgins in Haywards Heath.

It looks as if Betfred are not sponsoring the event this season, contrary to what I suggested in this earlier post. There was someone who suggested this would be the case by commenting on my post, unfortunately he/she commented anonymously so I can't credit him/her with a name! :-) After I saw this comment back at the end of May I contacted Matchroom for the official line on who would be the sponsors. They sent me an email back stating that they were still in negotiations with Betfred, ...but at this point in time, it looks like no agreement was finalised.

I've updated the Snooker Season 2007/2008 calendar with the Premier League dates, venues and who will be playing. Subscribe by clicking here or you can always subscribe at a later date using the Google calendar link in the right hand column at the top of the page.

It looks like all the matches will be broadcast live on Sky Sports!! Great news!!

Snooker: New Season Blasts Off Without Rocket!

The season is under way with the Shanghai Masters. Already there's a little bit of controversy with - guess who - yes, our friend Ronnie O'Sullivan. A statement on Ronnie's official website says that he has injured his back. This looks like a legitimate complaint so nobody's really in a position complain. Although I'm sure the paying public are not too pleased and my natural cynicism is throwing a few doubts my way!!! How many of you have got your doctor to write you a not-entirely-true doctors note and how many times as Ronnie stated publicly that it's pointless travelling all the way to China for a tournament?

The statement reads as follows:

"We regret to inform you that Ronnie has had to withdraw from The Shanghai Masters, this is due to a back injury sustained while training. He has been advised by his doctor not to travel as sitting on a plane for several hours and stretching over a snooker table will significantly delay his recovery and he feels that he wouldn't be able to give the tournament 100%. The injury occurred several days ago and although Ronnie hoped that he would recover in time to appear in Shanghai he informed us this afternoon that this is not the case and he is unable to attend."

Moving on to the snooker, Monday saw 8 wild card matches with 8 Chinese players competing against 8 of Europe's "regular names". There were 3 shocks with Yu De Lu defeating Mike Dunn, Xiao Guadong defeating Michael Judge and Yang Qintainn defeating Scott Mackenzie.

The first round included a few tricky matches with Higgins having to play Jamie Cope, Stephen Lee vs Marco Fu, and Dave Harold vs Ebdon. Unfortunately I'm not getting to see many of the matches due to work commitments. I saw some of the wild card matches on Eurosport yesterday evening but none of them (that I saw) were particularly spectacular.

Feel free to comment on this blog if you see any of the matches, ...I'll add a few more posts as the tournament progresses.

It's great to see the snooker under way again! :-)

Snooker: 2007 BetFred Premier League

One of the 8 players featuring in this season's BetFred premier league will be current World Champion, John Higgins. Higgins hasn't played in the premier league for the last 3 seasons, but let's face it, BetFred can't really do without the World Champion!

Ronnie will be returning to defend his title after winning the last 3 leagues. This tournament really suits him and who says he can't win it again. But there are some great quality players there this year, with Higgins, Ronnie, Neil Robertson, Ding Junhui, Stephen Hendry, Steve Davis and Jimmy White.

With the 25 second shot clock, you would think the tournament would favour the naturally flowing players like Ronnie, Robertson, Ding and White. But as shown last year, pretty much all the players can play under this kind of time pressure, ...including Graeme Dott, who has a more measured approach.

For the players that are invited, this tournament can be quite lucrative. In the league stage players will receive £1,000 per frame and £1,000 per century break. The total prize money is a minimum of £226,000.

In the initial league stage, everybody plays everybody with the winner in each match receiving 2 points, and 1 point is awarded to both players in the event of a draw. The top 4 in the league will move into the knockout stage.

All the matches will be played on various nights from September through to December with the knockout stages taking place on the 1st and 2nd of December.

I look forward to this event every year, it really is a refreshing change from snooker-as-we-know-it! Last year Jimmy White threw his cue to the other side of the arena on national TV and we didn't see anything about in the press the next day. And it was the first time the world saw Ding Junhui completely lose it against Jimmy White, throwing his head back against the advertising hoardings and smashing the balls each time he got back to the table. This was a long time before he lost it at the Masters in London earlier this year.

Also, last year, even though Ding qualified to get to the knockout stage he had to pull out because he had committed himself to the Asian Games. Let's hope nothing like that happens this year.

I'll be watching all the matches and commenting on them when I have time, the earliest something will be up will be the following day. All the matches will be shown on Sky as well as other selected channels around the world. If you know of any other channels the league will be shown, please post a comment.

Here's the line-up with their World Rankings:

John Higgins – Scotland (1)
Ronnie O’Sullivan – England (5)
Neil Robertson – Australia (7)
Stephen Hendry – Scotland (8)
Ding Jun-hui – China (9)
Steve Davis – England (15)
Jimmy White – England (60)

Snooker: Top 16 for 2007/2008

2006/2007 rankings in brackets.

Big names in: Junhui, Selby, Day
Big names out: Hawkins, Stevens, Hamilton

Davis has hit his goal of being in the top 16 at 50 years of age!

1 (4) John Higgins
2 (6) Graeme Dott
3 (5) Shaun Murphy
4 (2) Ken Doherty
5 (3) Ronnie O'Sullivan
6 (7) Peter Ebdon
7 (13) Neil Robertson
8 (1) Stephen Hendry
9 (27) Ding Junhui
10 (9) Stephen Maguire
11 (28) Mark Selby
12 (8) Mark Williams
13 (10) Stephen Lee
14 (15) Allister Carter
15 (11) Steve Davis
16 (17) Ryan Day

Snooker: Higgins Takes a Fantastic Final

Mark Selby pushed Higgins all the way in the 888.com World Snooker Championship Final. In a great match that swayed both ways over 2 days, Higgins finally managed to pull himself and his game together for the last four frames that took him to the title.

Higgins deserved the victory and Selby was a great runner-up. He made Higgins fight all the way and is now certainly a big name for the future.

Selby's display of cue power was awesome but he didn't quite manage to buzz the same way he did when he knocked in his 3 consecutive centuries earlier in the tournament. Selby was really looking to grind out the victory and I thought he might do it as Higgins, for me, looked the more tired of the two players.

Higgins said Selby put up and great fight and played great, he also said that when he played Selby two years ago, "he wasn't that good!" :-) a comment much appreciated by Selby who played the whole match in good spirits. But last year Selby beat Higgins and Higgins said he could see that Selby was a different class of player. Over these last 2 weeks, Selby's shown himself to be a different class again.

The last word has to go to Higgins, he's always been a class player who came onto the professional stage at the same time as O'Sullivan. He beat Ronnie to their first titles and look to move on quickly to becoming a dominant force in the game. For various reasons, probably only known to him, it didn't happen. He's a truly great player that I think hasn't achieved to his full potential over the last 10 years, but I'm really happy to see him back at the top where he belongs. I think he's got more World titles in him, and although I've lost money with him winning this year, I hope to see him winning a lot more titles in the future.

I may edit this article a little more tomorrow, but that's about it from this season's snooker on greenbaize, but add us to your news readers using the red XML or RSS links to the top right of this page and we'll be updating the site regularly with Cue Sports News! We'll keep you informed with the gossip and other non-ranking (as well as ranking) snooker events. Jonni will be blogging on the Eurotour and we will be posting interviews with players.

Snooker: Selby Steals Final Place from Murphy

Mark Selby has won a fantastic semi final. He beat his good friend Shaun Murphy 17-16 after been 16-14 down. The pair put on a great match in a very good spirited game.

Selby looked down and out at 16-14, especially as it looked like he might win the 30th frame and take the match to 15-15. But he managed to get a difficult blue that he missed out of his mind and take the next 3 frames.

Selby let a one of his quips drop in the studio when being interviewed by Hazel Irvine, he said he was so nervous and shaking so much that he felt like he had Parkinson's disease, ...he might be apologising for that one later!!

Selby said that Murphy will be sticking around to support him in the final which shows how much support each of them have for each other.

Selby now plays John Higgins in the final, and let's hope it's a good as what the two semis were.

Snooker: Higgins in the Final

Maguire will be really disappointed having held a commanding lead going into the final session. But John Higgins played very well to win 7 out of 8 frames to get the final where he will play Mark Selby or Shaun Murphy.

From 15-15 the players began to get very nervy but Higgins eventually stumbled over the line. Who will do the business tonight to earn the right to play Higgins in the final. I think Murphy has to be favourite but Selby has surprised many pundits to get to semi final and currently the match is finely balanced at 12-12.