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Another smaller ranking event, which with it's winner's prize of £ 50.000 and 50.000 ranking points is just above the Shoot-Out (32.000), the Gibraltar Open (25.000) and the Paul Hunter Classic and on par with the Riga Masters.
So obviously it is also a short format tournament, that starts with 64 players, with all rounds only Best-of-7 and only the final a Best-of-9. So it really does not feel like it should be rated as a full ranking event.
However it is one nowadays and after the wins of Ryan Day, Luca Brecel and Michael White it seems likely that another player, who is not rated among the very elite of the game (like Top 10 players of the world) could snatch the title here, cause many of the best players chose not to enter this event. Mark Selby, Judd Trump, Ding Junhui, Marco Fu, Barry Hawkins, Neil Robertson, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Liang Wenbo, Ryan Day and Mark Williams are not competing here. Ali Carter and Kyren Wilson lost in qualifying.
It's good to see John Higgins made the journey though. As did Shaun Murphy, Stuart Bingham, Mark Allen and defending champion Anthony McGill.
In my country Eurosport isn't even showing this small tournament and honestly I don't even miss it, though there are actually already some decent first-round-matches like Anthony Hamilton - Hossein Vafaei or Gary Wilson - Luca Brecel.
Here's the link to the full draw:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_I...Open_(snooker)
So obviously it is also a short format tournament, that starts with 64 players, with all rounds only Best-of-7 and only the final a Best-of-9. So it really does not feel like it should be rated as a full ranking event.
However it is one nowadays and after the wins of Ryan Day, Luca Brecel and Michael White it seems likely that another player, who is not rated among the very elite of the game (like Top 10 players of the world) could snatch the title here, cause many of the best players chose not to enter this event. Mark Selby, Judd Trump, Ding Junhui, Marco Fu, Barry Hawkins, Neil Robertson, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Liang Wenbo, Ryan Day and Mark Williams are not competing here. Ali Carter and Kyren Wilson lost in qualifying.
It's good to see John Higgins made the journey though. As did Shaun Murphy, Stuart Bingham, Mark Allen and defending champion Anthony McGill.
In my country Eurosport isn't even showing this small tournament and honestly I don't even miss it, though there are actually already some decent first-round-matches like Anthony Hamilton - Hossein Vafaei or Gary Wilson - Luca Brecel.
Here's the link to the full draw:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_I...Open_(snooker)
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