Global Snooker
There has been no news for some time now on the John Higgins saga but today World Snooker have announced a ‘new rule’ which could see China’s Liu Song take his place should his suspension remain in place for too much longer…
The new rule as stated over at WorldSnooker.com here reads:
The Association reserves the right in its sole discretion to offer a concession to any person to play on a Tour in a Tournament where a vacant space arises as a result of the suspension of a Member who has qualified for a place on the World Snooker Tour. Any person offered such a concession will be the lowest seeding position on the Tour.
This concession right will be exercised on a Tournament by Tournament basis. It will be a condition of entry for any person offered such a concession that, should a suspended player be eligible to rejoin and resume his place on the Tour, the concession place will be withdrawn.
With the Shanghai Masters qualifiers set to be begin on the 2nd August, a decision will have to be taken relatively quickly if Liu is indeed to replace Higgins for both that tournament and the World Open. While I am not suggesting that this in any way implies that Higgins is guilty, it perhaps does suggest that a final decision on the matter is not imminent.
On what criteria have they selected Liu? As you can see from my 2009/10 one-year ranking list, of the players not ranked inside the top 64 at the end of last season on the two year list, Liu is in 10th position, behind the eight who retained their tour status via the one-year list and Xiao Guodong who was given a wildcard spot.
Ok so that was a bit of a mouthful, basically he was the best player on the one-year list last season who isn’t on the tour already.
How this would affect the rankings is unclear, for example would he gain ranking points? Presumably Higgins’ absence would also be good news for Jamie Cope, Mike Dunn, Rod Lawler and James Wattana who would move up a tier and have one less qualifier to play, or in Jamie’s case none at all.
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8 comments
darrus says:
July 12, 2010 at 9:33 pm (UTC 0 )
Matt, do you know when the draw for Shanghai Masters qualification will take place? Maybe they are not expecting the decision to come before the draw.
matt2745 says:
July 12, 2010 at 9:34 pm (UTC 0 )
I don’t, but three weeks is not a long time so I would expect it to come in the next week or so really. Just a guess though, last year it came VERY late if I remember rightly!
ddrIII says:
July 13, 2010 at 4:05 am (UTC 0 )
Last year the draw for the Shanghai Master came less then 1 week before the qualifying start.
Shawerr says:
July 13, 2010 at 1:03 pm (UTC 0 )
I want Jamie to be in the 16 so I hope Higgins gets suspended. Nothing personal.
Claus Christensen says:
July 13, 2010 at 1:51 pm (UTC 0 )
So he will by-pass the qualification and get John’s spot in the final stages? Ranking wise that would be an early x-mas present for Liu but is that really fair and is that the actual situation?
Sorry for being confused here. I’m sure NotW is loving this ripple effect they have caused…
matt2745 says:
July 13, 2010 at 7:26 pm (UTC 0 )
What I expect will happen is that Cope will take Higgins’ place in the top 16, Dunn will take his in the final qualifying round and so on. Song will surely have to qualify from the start.
godassesdor says:
July 15, 2010 at 2:15 pm (UTC 0 )
I hope Higgins will come back very soon.
He got punked by journalists.
French football team had the same treatment by journalists & it has resulted in full nonsense.
pure crap in both cases
Claus Christensen says:
July 15, 2010 at 6:36 pm (UTC 0 )
That cleared it up for me. Thanks.