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Re: The World Championships. Were they serious?

Postby SnookerFan

Caledonian Craig wrote:I saw the brief chat on the BBC with JP, Steve Davis and Hazel about the format of the World Championships and that is all it was - chat. As I recall it was JP who wanted a slight change shortening First and Second Round matches feeling players would arrive into the Final fresh and play better snooker.

Sorry but in my book if it ain't broke don't fix it. The present format has worked just fine for a great number of years and holds its position as the best loved snooker tournament on the planet so no need to change it and I do not think there will be a change either. It was merely a time filling discussion on the BBC between pundits in the aftermath of the short formatted World Open.

One more thing - over the longer matches you get a truer result so by shortening formats you run the risk of more freak results and quality not rising to the top. Far too great a risk to even contemplate.


I can see the complaint that sometimes players are knackered before the final. This year was a grind, for the example. And the one year I was lucky enough to be in attendance for The Crucible Final was the year Ali Carter was too tired to win more then a few frames.

On saying that, it seems a somewhat more recent complaint. The Worlds have been the same format for years, but it's only the past couple people have spoken about fatigue. And people might quip that the standard is higher now, so each match is more draining, but but surely that's offset by everybody being better.

Re: The World Championships. Were they serious?

Postby Caledonian Craig

Perhaps the fatigue thing is just because in the last couple of years there have been incredibly late finishes. I mean who can forget Graeme Dott against Peter Ebdon and not sure but wasn't he involved in a marathon match with Ali Carter as well. Frames were running for an average of 50 minutes so matches were very drawn out so fatigue is only a result of the length of frames I reckon and nothing to do with the length of the matches.