From 2013/14, the main tour will increase to 128 players as the expansion of the sport under Barry Hearn continues, but recently I have been thinking about just how exactly World Snooker intends to make up the numbers, or more to the point, how they can fit everyone in. Click below for more…
At first glance, 128 players seems like a lot, it is of course compared to the 96 (ish), that have been on the tour in recent years. Upon closer inspection however, given the extra tour places this season for the APTC/ET events, as well as the two-year cards given to all players outside of the top 64 this season, it is easy to see that there are not too many places left.
Let me break it down, based on a combination of the available information, logic, past history and a little bit of guesswork!
64 – In recent seasons the top 64 have retained their places on the main tour by right, something that I would expect to continue in 2013/14. With every player outside of the top 64 at the start of this season beginning on 0 points, let us assume that all of the current top 64 will remain there at the end of the season, though there are a couple of qualifications that I will address at a later stage.
35 – The players currently on the main tour who are raked outside of the world’s top 64 and are already assured of main tour places for 2013/14 having earned two-year tour cards
8 – As confirmed within the players pack for the UK-based PTC events for this season:
“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 2013/2014 Main Tour.”
Assuming that the current 99 professionals will remain on the circuit, this effectively means that the top eight amateurs on the PTC Order of Merit at the end of the season will earn professional places.
12 – Q School – During the past two seasons, tour places have been granted to 12 players via the season-ending Q School. The tournament and the amount of qualifiers has not yet been announced for 2013, so for the purposes of this post, let us assume that it will remain at 12.
4 – APTC Order of Merit – As taken from the APTC Player’s Pack:
“The top 4 players (professional or amateur) taken from the APTC Order of Merit, who have not already qualified will be awarded a place on the 2013/2014 Main Tour.”
3 – ET Amateur Order of Merit – Three players will qualify for the main tour via the European Order of Merit
Already, those players will require 126 places, leaving just two remaining if we are to have a 128 main tour from next season.
Who else is there to accommodate? Based on last season, potentially spots will be required for the following:
- x1 IBSF World Champion
- x1 IBSF World U-21 Champion
- x1 European Champion
- x1 European U-21 Champion
- x1 ACBS Nomination
- x1 Asian U-21 Champion
- x2 China Nominations
- x1 Thailand Nomination
- x1 Indian Nomination
- x2 European Nominations
- x1 Americas Nomination
- x1 Oceania Nomination
- x1 Africa Nomination
And so the problem becomes obvious, 141 into 128 does not go, so how will the situation be resolved?
Earlier in the post I referred to a couple of qualifications to be made concerning the top 64, notably concerning the retired Stephen Hendry, and suspended Joe Jogia.
In Stephen’s case, his one-year total of 22,175 points from 2011/12, will I suspect be more than enough to see him retain a tour place for 2013/14, as strange as it might seem.
For Jogia meanwhile, assuming that his appeal against his two-year suspension is unsuccessful, his one-year tally of 12,280 from last season is unlikely to be enough, indeed Rod Lawler is already up to 9,350 points and based on his performances so far, will surely overtake Jogia by next May, potentially freeing up a further spot.
Otherwise, it remains to be seen whether the new tour places allocated to the APTC will affect those previously given as Chinese and Thailand nominations for example, or whether the intention is to continue with both.
I am sure that events such as the IBSF and EBSA tournaments will continue to provide an entry to the main tour, but it will be interesting to see how they reconcile that with the apparent lack of places.
How would you structure the tour for next season?
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16 comments
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RM
September 24, 2012 at 10:03 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The only way I can see the nominations working is by reducing the entrants in the Q-School as that is the only qualification pathway that hasn’t had the number of places confirmed yet.
As for the nominations themselves, I personally would scrap most of them apart from the IBSF World, European and Asian Championships. Probably the Oceania would remain, although not sure about Africa and Americas as they seem like token places to include the other continents and neither of this year’s nominations have played in any tour events.
Alan Moroney
September 25, 2012 at 12:10 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Personally I’d like to see a reduction in Q-school places with a maximum of 28 players winning 2 year tour cards each year plus the the top 64 totalling 120.Sometimes fewer as a player 1 year into his tour card may well end up in top 64.
The remaining spaces should be used to through the tour open to all players so that every event except the masters and PTC Finals and maybe a Tournament of Champions are open.
However you only gain entry if you:
a) hold a full tour card
or
b) are ranked high enough to gain one of the remaining spaces. Hence guaranteeing a minimum of 8 (more if not everybody enters, as happened with Wuxi and Australia).
It would mean that all players can score ranking points/prize money and that no-one starts a year on zero unless they have one a tour card without having picked up points in the previous two years.
It would make the tour as a Grand Prix circuit more sell-able, has the romantic notion that anybody can start the season with the dream of getting into the World Championships and winning it. Of course they would have to achieve some amazing results in the PTCs to get into a full ranking qualifier and then almost go the distance to be high enough up the rankings to get into the qualifiers for the Crucible. Unlikely that someone could, but it really turns it into a merit tour – however the tour cards are important for enabling sponsor ship, visas etc to be able to commit fully for most players, so they are still vital.
If a non tour player managed to finish the season in the top 64, he’d automatically have a tour card next season .
bluelagoon
September 25, 2012 at 5:45 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
1.) What would happen if a player (e.g. Joe Swail) qualifies via PTC AND ET-Order-of-merit? (Or are the ET-spots only open for non-british/irish players?)
2.) Does this Oliver Brown (only non-asian-amateur in APTC2) try to get one of the APTC-Spots or is he living in China? Would be clever, because it’s probably the easiest way to get a tourcard. Perhaps one good run to the quarterfinals could be enough.
RobH
September 25, 2012 at 8:21 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
If any new players on the tour (i.e. those qualifying outside the previous year’s ‘top 64′) are going to start on 0 points and have a 2-year card, then how are new players going to be added for the next season (i.e. season 2014/2015) if 1/2 the players on the tour have 2-year cards and the other half are highly ranked.
I can only presume that this 2-year card thing will stop once the tour is expanded to 128, as otherwise it would be unsustainable to have so many people be assured of a place for the following season.
Allineas
September 25, 2012 at 9:49 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
At the end of the next season, the current 65-99 have had two years time to gain ranking points (or prize money, as the list is supposed to be replaced), so their ranking is at least similar to that of the current top64. The new 100-128 have a two-year card, so if the top 64 and the bottom ~29 qualify, players ranked 65-99 at that time leave free spots for new players, again with two-year cards. I like the concept of 2-year cards with 0 starter points a lot better than the old system with starter points and a 1-year qualification, and I guess it will continue.
ANON
September 25, 2012 at 4:45 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
The national federation nominations for this year shouldn’t be repeated – if there are only 4 ‘spare’ spaces (assuming Hendry and Jogia come off the list) these should go to the IBSF / European / Asian champions.
History suggests there are bound to be a couple of others who resign from the tour – World Snooker could do worse than have a ‘forfeiture’ clause in the players contract to avoid someone like Ziegler / Figueredo taking a main tour space but only entering the worlds.
Presumably the 2 year tourcard / no starter points thing is going to be the norm for any player coming onto the tour, so how will they do this in future seasons – will top 64 still be the cut-off for staying on the tour (and dictate how many spaces will be available for QSchool etc) or will they decide at the start of the season how many spaces will be available and prune the list accordingly, i.e., if there were to be 41 tour cards available would the bottom 41 players (excluding those holding 2 year exemptions) lose their places?
roy142857
September 25, 2012 at 8:05 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I still think the worst performing players of the 64 not guaranteed a place for two years should lose their places and have to enter Q School. Having (say) only the top 54 of them safe would free up ten places.
Allineas
September 25, 2012 at 8:20 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
But they should have announced this already. It would be really nasty if a player dropped off the tour without knowing the requirements in advance. But anyway, WS’s strategy of clarifying things only after they happen is nothing new these days… I am pretty sure that they know in detail how the 128 will be put together, so why don’t they just tell us?
snoopy2608
September 26, 2012 at 4:03 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
I’ve always assumed it would be the 126 as listed plus the 2 world events – as the Euro and Asia PTC qualifiers will replace the other qualifiers from last year
Mike S
September 28, 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Replacing the Asian champion and under-21 champion with the Asian PTC qualifiers effectively denies the chance for players from countries such as India to earn a place on the tour – the Asian PTC qualifiers will all be from China or Hong Kong (unless a player from another country enters APTC3 and reaches the semi-finals).
I suspect they might reduce the number of places available from Q School to 6 or 8 since (a) no tour drop-outs such as Lawler will need to enter and (b) many of the players who would normally be expected to enter Q School will already have tour places via the PTC order of merit and the European Tour amateur competition
snoopy2608
September 28, 2012 at 1:24 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
does anyone know the results from the amatuer event at the paul hunter classic? I can’t find them anywhere. thanks.
Mike S
September 28, 2012 at 6:42 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Patrick Einsle beat Lee Page in the final – the full results are at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AryXhXtDIQWddHQzYnMzeEh2cm9nZDRna2lIN1dhblE#gid=0
The link was posted in a comment to Matt’s first item on the phc
snoopy2608
September 29, 2012 at 6:52 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
thanks
roy142857
October 4, 2012 at 4:44 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Just to note, the IBSF World Championship has been cancelled due to concerns from the Egyptian hosts about security. They are looking for alternative venues, but possible there may be no IBSF World Champion this year.
jamie
November 25, 2012 at 9:29 pm (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Does anyone know if the dates for 2013 Australian Goldfields open snooker tournament in Bendigo have been released yet? I live in Australia and would like to know what date in July it is starting.
Thank you
Jamie
matt2745
November 26, 2012 at 12:06 am (UTC 0) Link to this comment
Nothing announced yet, but I’ll have it on the blog as soon as I know.