Last year it was Declan Hughes, this time around it is Mark Boyle as the Scot has reportedly resigned his main tour place and will not compete for the remainder of the season…
The reason for Mark’s withdrawal is not clear as yet, though with just one win from his first three matches his chances of remaining on the circuit for 2009/10 were looking increasingly slim as was the case with Hughes a year earlier. It may be the case that like Declan, Mark has decided that the cost of travelling to Prestatyn is not worth it considering the lack of prize money available until the third round of qualifying.
As some of you will be aware however, it has been posted on Mark’s profile over at Wikipedia that the Scot has passed away during this month. Without any evidence to support this statement or any news on the usual trusted websites, I am extremely sceptical and do not believe the ‘story’ to be true. A similar incident happened back in 2006 when Mike Hallett’s Wikipedia profile was also edited to say that he had died when in reality he was (and is!) alive and well.
If anyone can confirm this though and shed any light on why Mark has resigned his tour place then that would be much appreciated.
UPDATE: Though not a user of Facebook myself, I have been informed that Mark posted a message around 11 hours ago to say that he is taking a break from snooker so it would appear that the Wikipedia edit is indeed a piece of mischief making by the author in question.