World Snooker Tour

The World Snooker Tour is a circuit of snooker tournaments organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) for their members. To compete as a professional player, players must be WPBSA members.

Blue-filled: Nations that were hosting a World Snooker Tour event in 2017/18.

Background

Historically a player just needed to become a professional member of the governing body to participate in events, which was attained by formal invitation by an existing current member, and this system was eventually replaced by the "Pro-Ticket" series.[1] The game went open for the 1991/1992 season, whereby anyone could apply for professional membership and enter the tournaments.[2] Due to over-subscription, a two-tiered tour structure was adopted for the 1997/1998 season: the primary tour—known as the Main Tour—with a limited membership, and a secondary professional tour was established for the rest of the professional membership.[3]

Main Tour

The Main Tour consists of ranking tournaments which contribute to a player's ranking, and invitational events which do not.[4] All players on the tour can enter a ranking event, whereas the entry criteria for an invitational event is often set by the sponsor or broadcaster, and usually excludes many players on the tour.[5][6] Ranking tournaments are often played in two stages—a qualification stage and the "main draw", usually at different locations.[4] The main draw is most likely to be held at a prestigious venue where audiences can purchase a ticket and watch the players compete.[7] Typically only the main draw is televised,[8][9] and therefore often carries considerably higher prize money than the qualifiers.[10][11] Players traditionally come into ranking events in different rounds based on their world ranking, and the top players in the sport—often the top 16 ranked players—are usually seeded through to the venue stage and do not have to play a qualification match; however, from the 2013/2014 season the circuit began to transition to a "flat" format structure, with all the players starting in the first round. Some tournaments also have an amateur leg that makes it possible for non-members to enter WPBSA events.[12]

Qualification

To compete on the Main Tour as a professional player, a player must qualify for it. At the end of each season, a pre-determined number of players are relegated from the tour based on their performance in ranking tournaments and on the secondary tour, making way for new professionals to join the tour. There are several qualification routes for the tour: a player can gain qualification via the various events organised by the WPBSA itself or affiliate organisations, and a limited number of places are usually made available to players at the discretion of the governing body.[13]

History

Following the creation of the Main Tour in the 1997/1998 season, the top ranked professionals qualified automatically for places while the rest of the membership had to qualify for places through a series of qualifying schools.[14] The qualifying schools were only held the once, and thereafter the main qualification route was via the secondary professional tour.[3] Following the scrapping of the secondary tour, the promotion places were then allocated to the International Open Series (PIOS)—an amateur open tour organised by Pontins—for the 2005/2006 season. The amateur status of the event meant that players who had been relegated from the Main Tour and wished to compete on PIOS had to relinquish their professional membership. This had an unpopular side effect, since if players relinquished professional membership they would be unable to enter the World Snooker Championship, which is open to all professional members including those who do not compete on the Main Tour.[15] Another issue was that players could not compete on PIOS while competing on the Main Tour, meaning that they were unable safeguard their membership on the Main Tour by immediately re-qualifying via PIOS, effectively keeping them out of professional competition for a whole season should they drop off the tour.[3] Even though PIOS was a competition in its own right, it primarily served as a Main Tour qualification route, and anticipating the streamlining of tour qualification for the 2011/2012 season this unpopular contest was discontinued after the 2009/2010 season.[15]

Q School
Main article: Q School (snooker)

The Q School was established in an attempt to streamline the qualification process for the Main Tour, and is more or less a replacement for PIOS. A series of play-offs are run through to the quarter-final stages only. Players pay a fixed entry fee to enter all the play-off events, and there is no prize money. Each player who wins a quarter-final game qualifies for a two-year tour card on the Main Tour. All the players that have entered the event compete in the first play-off, and those that are not successful are automatically entered into the next play-off and so on.

There are some important differences between the Q School and PIOS. Q School is purely a qualification process whereas PIOS was a tournament series in its own right. Q School is conducted in a limited time period of two to three weeks in May, during the interlude between seasons, while PIOS events were played over the course of the season. Another important distinction from PIOS is that it is open to everyone, and players who have just been relegated from the Main Tour are eligible to enter and if successful immediately regain their places on the tour.[1][16]

Other qualification routes

Typically, a small numbers of players who compete on the professional secondary tour will graduate to the Main Tour,[17] and World Snooker will usually offer a small number of invitational tour cards to players who have been relegated from the tour. There are several routes available to amateurs and they involve competitions provided through various amateur governing bodies. The two main ones beyond Q School are the European Billiards and Snooker Association (EBSA) Qualifying Tour and the Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association (CBSA) China Tour, and the EBSA also nominates their amateur and junior champions too.[18]

Current criteria
Further information: 2019–20 snooker season

The players who retain their place on the tour are only guaranteed a place for one further season, while everyone else—including those that requalify—is awarded a two-year tour card.[13]

Secondary professional tour
Main articles: Challenge Tour (snooker) and Players Tour Championship

A secondary tour was first established in the 1994/1995 season; comprising six tournaments, the WPBSA Minor Tour was open to all professionals, but only ran for one season.[19] The concept was revived in 1997/1998 in the form of the UK Tour, following the adoption of a two-tier tour structure.[14] Unlike the Main Tour which had restricted membership, the UK Tour was initially open to all professional members, even those competing on the Main Tour—although members of the Main Tour were prohibited from entering from the 1999/2000 season.[3] It was rebranded the Challenge Tour from the 2000/2001 season,[3][20] and open to all players not on the Main Tour and amateurs.[21] From the 2001/2002 season, the Challenge Tour had a restricted membership and offered exclusive professional competition to a limited number of professionals that were not members of the Main Tour,[21] and the Open Tour was established which was open to all players—including players on the Main and Challenge tours.[20] The WPBSA operated the three level circuit until the end of the 2002/2003 season when it split with the English Association of Snooker and Billiards (EASB). Since the Open Tour fell under the control of the EASB, which is an amateur governing body, the Open Tour took on amateur status and professional players were no longer eligible to enter.[20] The Challenge Tour was axed upon completion of the 2004/2005 season, leaving the restricted Main Tour as the only professional competition provided by the WPBSA.[3] The 2009/2010 season saw another attempt to establish a secondary tour with the introduction of the Pro Challenge Series.[22] Only four of the planned seven events were played before the series was axed due to low player participation; one of the criticisms of the event was that it offered no ranking points which discouraged participation.[23]

The 2010/2011 season saw the introduction of the Players Tour Championship (PTC), a series of minor-ranking tournaments that were open to the entire professional membership. The PTC events also included an amateur leg, effectively making it an open tour.[24] They also counted towards the rankings for professionals on the Main Tour,[25][26] and any player who finished in the top 8 of the PTC "Order of Merit" was guaranteed a tour card for the following season.[13] The PTC was discontinued at the end of the 2015/2016 season, just leaving the Main Tour as the only professional tour.[27]

The Challenge Tour has been revived for the 2018/2019 season. The tour consists of ten events with a 72-player field, drawing the top 64 players from the Q School "Order of Merit" who did not qualify for the Main Tour, in addition to a maximum of eight wildcards.[17]

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References
  1. Hendon, Dave (9 May 2011). "On Cue for Cue School". Snooker Scene Blog. Snooker Scene. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  2. Hendon, Dave (15 July 2009). "Past Masters #9". Snooker Scene Blog. Snooker Scene. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  3. Turner, Chris. "WPBSA Secondary Professional Tour". Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 28 February 2012. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  4. "Full Calendar". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
  5. "Tournaments". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
  6. Årdalen, Hermund (15 May 2011). "Tournaments". Snooker.org. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  7. "Tickets". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 9 December 2010. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  8. "World Snooker Events – Live Coverage" (PDF). World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
  9. "TV Schedules". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 4 April 2011. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  10. "2013/14 Calendar". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 8 April 2013. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
  11. "Indicative Prize Money Eankings Schedule 2013/2014 Season" (PDF). World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
  12. Hearn, Barry (8 April 2013). "Letter to Tour Players from Barry Hearn" (PDF). World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
  13. "Tour Structure". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Archived from the original on 4 March 2015.
  14. Hayton 2004, pp. 171–174.
  15. Turner, Chris. "Pontins International Open Series". Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 28 February 2012. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  16. "Q School 2018". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  17. "World Snooker Challenge Tour 2018/19". World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 7 February 2018. Archived from the original on 7 February 2018.
  18. "Main Tour Qualification 2018/19". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 29 March 2018. Archived from the original on 29 March 2018.
  19. Hayton 2004, pp. 166–167.
  20. Hayton 2004, pp. Introduction & 178–182.
  21. "2000 / 2001 Challenge Tour". fcsnooker. Preston, Lancashire: The Frank Callan Suite. 26 April 2002. Archived from the original on 10 October 2010. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  22. Hendon, Dave (30 June 2009). "Pro Challenge Series Launched". Snooker Scene Blog. Snooker Scene. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  23. Hendon, Dave (2 March 2010). "Pro Challenge Series Axed". Snooker Scene Blog. Snooker Scene. Retrieved 29 January 2012.
  24. "Players Tour Championship pits stars against amateurs". BBC Sport. BBC. 22 June 2010. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  25. "Ranking Points Schedule". World Snooker. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association. 26 November 2010. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  26. Turner, Chris. "Players Tour Championship". Chris Turner's Snooker Archive. Archived from the original on 16 February 2012. Retrieved 18 May 2011.
  27. 2015–2017 calendars

Bibliography
  • Hayton, Eric (2004). The CueSport Book of Professional Snooker. Suffolk: Rose Villa Publications. ISBN 978-0-9548549-0-4.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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