World Snooker have today made available their entry pack for events 1-4 of next season’s Players Tour Championship and within it there are a couple of interesting newslines, particularly with regard to qualification from the 2012/13 tour…
To view the document please click here (pdf).
The most interesting point to emerge from the document is this sentence:
“The top 8 players (professional or amateur), taken from the PTC Order of Merit, who have not already qualified will be awarded a place on the 2012/13 main tour.”
The bolded bit is the significant change from last season when although the top eight professional players not already secure on the main tour for 2011/12 were awarded a tour card, this did not apply to the amateurs.
Although the only amateur to lose out from this previously was Daniel Wells (who will be on the tour as the Welsh nomination anyway), the move is for me a positive one that as it opens up another route to the main tour for all which in turn will provide amateurs with an even greater incentive to both enter and perform well during these events.
Another point to note from the document is that the PTC2 event will be the first regular PTC event to be staged at the Southwest Snooker Academy in Gloucester, following on from the successful hosting of the EPTC4 event last season.
Furthermore there is news also concerning the PTC4 event aka the Paul Hunter Classic from Furth which will become the first of the 12 regular season PTC events to be televised by Eurosport. With matches to be broadcast from one table, hopefully this is a sign of things to come.