During the last past five years snooker in general has come a long way in terms of fan interaction, with the rise of social media and the power of the internet allowing us to get closer to the world’s leading players than ever before.
While a number of players have undoubtedly boosted their profiles due to their online presence, few can claim to have gone as far as Shaun Murphy, who this week added Instagram to his social media portfolio.
It might only be June, but following the conclusion of next week’s Australian Goldfields Open we will see the first mid-season seeding revision of the 2015/16 campaign.
The revision is a notable one too, with seedings for the Shanghai Masters, another event not to be played under a flat draw format, up for grabs in Bendigo…
It might be some five months away, but already ten places have been filled for November’s Champion of Champions event, set to be held at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry for a third consecutive year.
Today marks the first ‘middle Thursday’ of the World Championship where as is tradition, the first round will come to an end and the second round gets underway.
Now that we have seen all of the seeds in action, click below for a few impressions and thoughts about the tournament, with the field now almost halved since last Saturday…
Following eight days of qualifying and months of anticipation, the draw for the 2015 World Championship is now known and as was the case last year, former world number 3 and leading snooker analyst Neal Foulds has taken time out to cast his eye through the opening round ties and pick his players to watch at the Crucible this year.
Click below then to read this year’s bumper Crucible preview…
Following on from my earlier post confirming that Stephen Maguire will take the final automatic seeding for this year’s World Championship, with Ding Junhui’s victory against John Higgins we now know exactly how the top 16 seeds will be placed in the draw.
Light has also been shed on the draw for next week’s qualifiers, which will see 128 players battle it out to join the seeds at the Crucible…
After months of battling, the race for Crucible places in two weeks time has now finally resolved following defeat for Robert Milkins at the hands of Mark Selby in Beijing this morning.
This year Mark Selby will become the first player since Neil Robertson in 2011 to try and dispel the so-called ‘Crucible Curse’ that no first time champion will successfully defend the World Championship title at the Crucible Theatre.
Click below for my look back through time at how previous first-time world champions have seen their defences ended…