Dragonfly wrote:I hope Saudi money never gets involved with snooker. And hopefully a ranking event will never take place there.
Sports always seem to follow the money. But really principles should stand for something, and shouldn't get involved in rotten regimes like Saudi.
Yes the scrapped Saudi tournament was to have the same prize as the world championship winner so £500k, biggest prize of them all so far. (Unless we count the 4nations bonus if you win all 4 in year & get 1million, obviously it's very hard probably hardest thing to do on the WST, come to think of it no the triple crown slam is harder, that warrants a big bonus too should anyone manage it again)
And yes people did state their distaste for it being held there. Certainly does the women's tour no favours if they go there.
Re the Breakaway tour, Ronnie was fed up of the ranking system grind though he was very successful cherrypicking winning 1/2 of all tournaments he entered or at least getting to SF... He managed to reclaim no.1 briefly & then took a low profile in the 1st covid season even skipping the Masters. However he won his first world title since 2013 & secured more than enough ranking points for 2yrs & trolled the 2020-21 season not practising outside tournaments and using the match tables to practise lol by potting every last ball even dead balls. This season yes he became the world champion again and world number 1 just before, so repeat of 2019 albeit he won the world title, not go out round 1 but otherwise he won just 1 tournament so wasn't stellar in results though he played well all season.
With Hearn retiring so to speak Ronnie's been less at odds with the tour (I am sure winning his 6th WC helped), he's found some peace with it lately though he's entered everything he can and even allowed film crews to follow him intimately & have a mic on him during matches.
SnookerFan wrote:I suspect that Ronnie never had any intention of going through with it
That heated debate he had in 2018's UK championship postmatch with Steve Davis and Ken Doherty he said it's a last resort and he's no entrepreneur, biggest shock for me in that debate was he said he wants to be world no.1! So odd when he says he doesn't care about ranking points but he did go onto being no.1 twice since saying that including presently. It was funny when he spoke about it and Steve looked at disgust at him saying 'Exhibitions!?' Also it's incredible, Doherty asked 'Don't you want to beat Hendry's record of 7world titles?'
<3yrs later he's tied it! Of all his discussions that was definitely one of the most dramatic.
The enigma is obviously much happier turn of the decade with the tour having won 2 world titles and reaching no.1 twice to consider dropping out/retiring & from an interview he says he has a good lawyer friend so his dealings with World Snooker's a lot less aggro now. Oh yeah he said in interviews he keeps out of it now with discussing how to improve the tour etc, he used to care but he just tries not to anymore as it gives him grief.
by RunningSide » 06 Jun 2022 Read
