SCHOOL'S OUT FOREVER?

The Tuesday newsletter #4

Nobody likes Q School. Even the players who graduate find it hard to love. Watching their interviews afterwards it occurred to me that several resembled newly released hostages. They were just relieved to be out of there, the nightmare finally over.

Still, congratulations must go to the eight players who made it through the UK Q School and the four who qualified from the Asia-Pacific version. They all received fresh two-year tour cards.

There can be a revolving door quality to Q School. Certain players seem to return, boomerang style, every two years.

So it is that experienced campaigners like Andrew Higginson and Stuart Carrington have once again returned. Mitchell Mann is back again, as is Sean O’Sullivan. Teenagers Liam Davies and Gong Chenzhi have also bounced straight back, as has Cheung Ka Wai.

The only new professional to emerge from the UK Q School is Phil O’Kane, after 13 previously unsuccessful attempts. Fair play to him and his persistence.

The Asia-Pacific qualifiers were Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon of Thailand, a former professional, and three more players from China: Deng Haohui, Liu Yang and the returning Huang Jiahao.

A huge number of matches were played to find these 12 players. But is Q School the right way to fill up the tour or has it served its purpose?

Slogging away in best of sevens amid sweltering heat at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester with no one watching feels a long way from the bright lights of the World Snooker Tour’s biggest events. It also puts enormous pressure on players to deliver in one of just two tournaments. Robert Milkins was the biggest name involved but failed to make it through.

I think a tour survival cut off at 64^th in the world rankings is now too cut-throat. Players ranked lower than this have won titles and reached finals in recent years. The world no.65 is a seriously good player.

Perhaps the cut off could come at 80, with new places on the circuit decided by the Q Tour, which stages events for amateurs all season. This means players have a whole year to get results, not just a fortnight.

The problem with this is that players – such as Davies and Mann – who dropped off tour would also have to wait a whole year to get back on. So maybe some kind of play-off event for relegated players could be staged, with a couple of tour cards available. It would certainly be a swifter affair than the Q School.

If Q Tour became the driving force behind tour qualification it would surely boost the amateur game, with a higher number of entries, meaning they could increase the number of tournaments and make it a viable amateur tour running alongside the professional one.

This seems a better way to produce new professionals than 12 sweaty days in Leicester.

GETTING TO THE POINT

It seems the flat draw format for ranking events, introduced in 2013, is now a thing of the past.

‘Fairness’ in sport is a largely nebulous concept but the thought behind all 128 players coming in from the first round of events is that nobody had an advantage (this of course ignores the huge advantage of geography the British players have when every qualifier is staged in the UK.)

In reality, what it meant was new professionals becoming lambs to the slaughter by playing the sport’s biggest names in round one, rather than players nearer their own standard.

It also risked top players – who drive the interest in the game – being eliminated before the final stages, thus diluting their appeal.

Matches were always low key and often spectators were not allowed in. Commercially, none of it did much for snooker.

Now, it seems there has been a change of heart. The restored China Open will follow the same 144-player format of the World and UK Championships. The Wuhan Open will have three rounds of qualifying to get into the top 64, where the top 16 already reside. The likelihood is that the remaining Chinese events will carry the same format. The Home Nations tournaments and German Masters already do.

This makes logical sense but will add to calls to change the current prize money ranking system to a points-based one.

It seems wrong that the top 16 have events where they only need to win one match to earn tens of thousands of points while the rest are slogging through three of four rounds for the same money.

The advantage of a money list is that it incentivizes promoters, particularly in China, to put in the big money to buy prestige for their events.

The downside is that it can skew the rankings, with some events worth a lot more than others.

Transitioning from a money system to points list won’t be straightforward and will require careful calculation, but it feels more likely now to happen than not.