Top 16 to start in first round...

[Ginger Freak]

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/snooker/20790857

What does everyone think of this? It works for darts, but I'm not sure about snooker. Would love to see the full breakdown of how it will work, and why he has chosen the Aussie open rather than the UK champs to keep the status quo! I also assume it means he intends to expand the tour participation?

[trains]

BH only has to show the promoters and broadcasters the ptc rankings from this year and last,the best players or cream rises to the top in short or long formats,the only real note is it should have happened yonks ago.

[cueman]

If I was a top 16 player I wouldn't be very happy about it. Already the PTC's are taking a lot out of the players and they are only short race to 4 frame events. What is he trying to do to the players, make them hate the game, many will be burnt out by the time they reach the crucible and that is gruelling enough. A lot of players are very unhappy at the moment with so many tournaments and no time to take a break and recharge the batteries so to speak.

Adding to the length of tournaments is going to mean many events take 2 weeks to complete rather than the current set up which is usually 7-8 days, at least the televised stages.

What is the point of a ranking system if everyone comes in at the same stage?

[trains]

The bulk of new players and income over the next decade will come from the far east,no reason at all why they should take a staggered rankings and money system.
2 events this season the top 32 only play one match less than the rest anyway,its progression,can many hard core fans name all the top 16 in say the year 2000? I can't and tbh I couldn't care less.

[sberry]

Burnt out? That's like football managers saying their precious players can't manage two 90min kickabouts a week. Let them try spending 2.5k a year on fares and 3 hours a day commuting to a 9-5 McJob with the grief that comes with it meaning they're doing an 11 hr day five days a week for less than 25k a year - that's what most people do.

How many on here would rather do that or be paid to play snooker for a living?

[cueman]

Burnt out? That's like football managers saying their precious players can't manage two 90min kickabouts a week. Let them try spending 2.5k a year on fares and 3 hours a day commuting to a 9-5 McJob with the grief that comes with it meaning they're doing an 11 hr day five days a week for less than 25k a year - that's what most people do.

How many on here would rather do that or be paid to play snooker for a living?

But a lot of people that do normal jobs are usually not highly skilled and nor do your wages depend on your performance unlike sports people and in this case snooker.
You can't compare the two though its usually the same old line that gets spurted out when people hear of burn out or fatigue affecting their performance.

Also these players are one bad season away from losing their MT place and still even those on the MT still have to do other jobs in order to pay the bills, not to mention that they also have to pay the entry fees and hotel accomodation, flights etc only to find there is no appearance money because now they have decided they all come in at round 1 so no guarantee of being on TV. I'm sure you'd love the pressure of all that rather than the comfort of your day to day job with guaranteed income, and being able to come home and relax and then off to your own bed each night. Don't think these players have an easy life, its far from it but why should they have to make things tougher for them when footballers and other sports have a lot more money in them regardless of whether they win or not!

[LittleMissAlexa]

also snooker players arent employees of world snooker they are their own employees

[LittleMissAlexa]

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/snooker/20790857

What does everyone think of this? It works for darts, but I'm not sure about snooker. Would love to see the full breakdown of how it will work, and why he has chosen the Aussie open rather than the UK champs to keep the status quo! I also assume it means he intends to expand the tour participation?

im sure darts has a qualifying event

also arguably the top 16 do technically come in in the first round qualifying is a seperate event

[Gerry Armstrong]

The issue with comparing to other sports e.g. Golf and Tennis being 2 which often get mentioned as all players starting in Round 1 is of course that this isn't true at all.

There are well over 500 players on the ATP tour rankings and only 128 start in Round 1 of Tier 1 events. I'm not sure of the exact numbers but roughly the Top 100 are guaranteed to be in the main draw and the other 400+ players scrap it out to try and fill the 20-30 spots for lower ranked players.

Same thing with Golf e.g. the Open Championship is only open to a certain percentage of the field. Not even all European and PGA Tour pros are guaranteed entry, many of them have to try and qualify.

There are only 96 players in the whole world trying to play snooker professionally so it makes sense to take a slice off the top i.e. the top players and put them straight in to the events at the venues and let the rest battle it out to join them. That would make it the same as other sports, not making Rory McIlroy qualify for the Open Championship or Andy Murray qualify for Wimbledon!!

I would have the top 32 straight through to each venue with the rest battling it out for 16 spots in a flat draw, everyone from 49 down starting in Round 1 of qualifying for 16 qualifying spots, and only top 16 guaranteed spots at UK and World Champs.

[Ginger Freak]

im sure darts has a qualifying event

also arguably the top 16 do technically come in in the first round qualifying is a seperate event

Yes there are qualifying events in Darts, but that is only because they have far more eligible players, a bit like the Tennis/Golf sitation that Gerry mentions above. What I mean about Darts is, the likes of Taylor and Barney have to start in the last 128/64 of most tournaments, whereas the likes of Higgins and Trump get a golden ticket to the last 32 of most Snooker tournaments.

What it all amounts to is Hearn expanding the tour and making the tournaments bigger.

This could be both good - increased participation, competition, and, hopefully, exposure, but also, bad - dilution of prize money,player burn-out, and yet more shortening of matches in order to fit all the events in.

[vmax4steve]

If the top players have to play in round one then maybe the TV coverage will start sooner and the crowds will be better from the off which should help to bring in sponsors and expand the prize pool.
As for burn out, what a load of bull, these blokes have chosen to do this and they know what they are getting into. Alex Higgins would have loved to play in this modern era with tournaments all the time rather than having to hawk his cue around dingy working mens clubs for a hundred quid a night while waiting for the next world championship to arrive on the calender.
Some people don't know they're born.

[cueman]

As Judd Trump put it on his twitter. Its taken him 5 years of hard graft to make it to number one in the world for one man to overnight say that they are all on a level playing field. Fair game snooker!

[sberry]

He's not number 1 and according to the entry packs on WS the sponsors put up for the hotel accomodation, most of us would give our right arm to be able to do what they moan about, if they really don't like it they can apply to Asda for a job or work in London if they want more money and the commuting.

I know what you mean though, all that travelling, seeing the world, getting spoilt and earning money and adulation just for playing the game that most of us pay to play and would do so more if we could.

I don't do twitter but #hashtag#whinginggitsdontknowhowluckytheyare

[cueman]

Only time will tell but if a few of the top seeds keep losing early rounds and not making it to the TV stages do you really think there are going to be sponsors interested when you get unknowns making it through. Already snooker is suffering without the likes of O'Sullivan and Hendry and it relies heavily on the other stars to make it to the latter stages in order to gain interest from the public and TV audience. A quarter final line up of anthony hamilton, dave Harold, Peter Ebdon, Fergal O'Brien, Mark Joyce, Alan McManus, Rod Lawler and Rory McLeod and I might just kill myself than endure that possible line up. Especially if the seeds aren't protected and it can be an open draw this is a very strong possibility.

On the other hand who wants to see Judd or Higgins up against the bottom seeded players where they will be completely demotivated by the opposition and will likely win most matches 5-1 or 5-0.
In fact lets go back to the 80's which is what this will be like, pay up your £500 and anyone can become pro. Lets have 700 pros and that way we can have even more matches and money to go around which seems to be all Hearn is interested in.
This will be a big big mistake and it wouldn't surprise me that 5 years or less from now we'll back to 96 again because the standard falls dramatically.

[JIMO96]

In terms of allowing new faces to "make it big" in snooker, this is the best thing to happen to the sport in decades. Currently, new players have to win 4 or 5 qualifying matches to reach just the last 32.....when you consider that only 16 get to qualify from a field including toughened match players like Harold, Hamilton, O'Brien, King, Doherty....you can see what a slugfest it can be for the new boys.

Not only that, but the guys in the 17-32 bracket, or 33-48 bracket get guaranteed ranking points, even if they lose their first match, resulting in the ridiculous scenario of players earning more for losing than some do for winning. No wonder there are no new faces coming through! At least if everyone is in from round 1, they'll actually have to EARN their points rather than turn up and collect them.

Fair enough, I can see why broadcasters are reluctant, as there is now no guarantee that all or even any of the top 16 will make it to the TV stages. So there is a case for giving these guys a bye into the event proper. But I will never be convinced as to why this exemption should apply to the 17-32 bracket, or the 33-48 etc. What exactly have these players done to deserve such over protection? Chucking them all in at the same round is the fairest way.

Anyway, we should be moving away from the notion of a "top 16" elite. The elite from here on in will be the top 128, because flatter draws mean that the same opportunity to shine is available to only those 128 players. Let the revolution begin.....