Provisional '16/'17 calendar

Wonder where the English Open is going to be? It was rumoured to be in Manchester, weren't it? Or did I make that up?

Shortly after my birthday that?

No qualifiers in Crawley? Sad times.

I'm absoulutely gutted there's no Australian Open, the Wimbledon+Australian Open combo was perfect for my sports binge in July.

motorhead wrote:I'm absoulutely gutted there's no Australian Open, the Wimbledon+Australian Open combo was perfect for my sports binge in July.

Wow, so the Aussie Open has been cancelled? Why has there been no official announcement or something about this?

Cloud Strife wrote:

motorhead wrote:I'm absoulutely gutted there's no Australian Open, the Wimbledon+Australian Open combo was perfect for my sports binge in July.

Wow, so the Aussie Open has been cancelled? Why has there been no official announcement or something about this?

I read it has been moved to March. (so not cancelled)

Can't believe the Championship League has survived.

Is the Riga and Paul Hunter Classic full ranking events then?

I am guessing there will be no PTC Final (with there being no PTC's!!!!) so I guess if it is true Australia is moving to March it will be held the week before the China Open.

So the events still needing dates are:

Masters
Gibraltar Open
German Masters (finals)
Shoot-Out(?)
Welsh Open
World Grand Prix(?)
Australian Open
China Open
World Championships

Somewhat surprised they have left a 2 week gap between India and the new Chinese event... could the World Cup be placed inbetween?

Think the World Grand Prix initially got a 5 year contract.

Still think it's bonkers that they put provisional event on the calendar. It's one of the first events!!! It's only 4/5 months away.

I wonder of the status of the Paul Hunter Classic, Gibraltar Open etc...

whitespider wrote:I wonder of the status of the Paul Hunter Classic, Gibraltar Open etc...

In terms of Money - same as now, what you win goes to your ranking.

In terms of Seeding - "Completely open first round draw with no seeding."

I mean in terms of whether they are full ranking events or not (as opposed to effectively minor ranking qualifiers for the PTC Finals). If they are full ranking events then that's 18 ranking events next season.

Wow.

whitespider wrote:Can't believe the Championship League has survived.

Why? Fantastic tournament.

whitespider wrote:I mean in terms of whether they are full ranking events or not (as opposed to effectively minor ranking qualifiers for the PTC Finals). If they are full ranking events then that's 18 ranking events next season.

Wow.

How can an event like Gibraltar Open be a major ranking? I'm assuming the prize money would more or less be the same as last December which would still make it a minor-ranking tournament. Can't remember what's Paul Hunter's prize money off the top of my head but unless there's an increase to it then it stays the same.

The Riga Open has a dedicated slot for qualifying so I'm assuming that's going to be a full ranker now. 5 day tournament in total.

Paul Hunter Classic is a 4 day tourney so I'm assuming that's minor - though it there is no carrot of the PTC Finals payday who is going to play in it?

Gibraltar - we have no idea. But the venue is spacious enough for a full ranker. Otherwise like above how are they going to attract a decent field?

whitespider wrote:The Riga Open has a dedicated slot for qualifying so I'm assuming that's going to be a full ranker now. 5 day tournament in total.

A full ranker played over 3 days at the main venue tho rather confusing. There must be a typo, the tournament would end on the 24th June which is a Friday....

That calendar looks a mess. All those qualifiers weeks before the events, the stop start way it begins in the summer and the number of different trips to Asia (four or five in a season) isn't really what I thought it would be a few years ago.

fridge46 wrote:I am guessing there will be no PTC Final (with there being no PTC's!!!!) so I guess if it is true Australia is moving to March it will be held the week before the China Open.

They said during the last World Championship that the Players Championship and Grand Prix were going to be part of a Snooker version of Golf's FedEx Cup. That would mean the top 32 of the season in the WGP and after that the top 16 in the PC. It would work if you didn't have the China Open (and possibly Australia too) coming up after it.

With regards to random seeding for Riga and the PH, are we talking two pots - one with the top 64 and one with the bottom 64?

rocketupthepocket wrote:With regards to random seeding for Riga and the PH, are we talking two pots - one with the top 64 and one with the bottom 64?

Just 1 pot - no seeding whatsoever. So we could have 1 v 2 and 127 v 128 in the first round!

fridge46 wrote:

rocketupthepocket wrote:With regards to random seeding for Riga and the PH, are we talking two pots - one with the top 64 and one with the bottom 64?

Just 1 pot - no seeding whatsoever. So we could have 1 v 2 and 127 v 128 in the first round!

Absolutely ludicrous. I certainly won't be watching.

Looking forward to seeing where the Irish open will be held. They used to have the PTC Grand finals in my home city - it wasn't a suitable venue in my opinion, but I wasn't complaining when I had snooker on my doorstep.

I'm sure they said last season that the PTCs that would be remaining were the ones which would be able to survive on their own and cost World Snooker anything to run. - Since these have been scaled back the Grand Finals are supposedly going down to a 16 player field instead of 32. I wouldn't necessarily read much into Riga having a qualifying draw - the other PTCs have all had qualifying sections and even if it is to be a little bit more - it still has an open draw.- with a three day finals stages I can't see it being much more than perhaps a 32 man finals with best of 7s and a best of 9 final.

Looking at the Home series it looks like they'll all be following the Welsh Open format.

The new seeding structures look good - we need a bit of variety rather than the stringent fixing of half of the players into the bracket every time. The only disappointment I dare say is the fact that Shanghai is tiered. The World Championship should be alone in having a tiered format

The likely dates for the World Championship - barring any change to the usual window is going to be April 15th-May 1st (presuming that the tournament runs in the Saturday to May Day Bank Holiday) similarly if the Masters runs in the same slots as before presumably that will mean 8th-15th or 15-22nd January

Pink Ball wrote:Looking forward to seeing where the Irish open will be held. They used to have the PTC Grand finals in my home city - it wasn't a suitable venue in my opinion, but I wasn't complaining when I had snooker on my doorstep.

I could have sworn the news was that it was going to be held in Belfast. They used to hold the NI Trophy there, if i'm not mistaken. Looking at the list though, it's a TBA, so, perhaps it's still undecided.

Australia is not going ahead. Hearn said its doubtful on twitter. Why did dave hendon say it would be held in march ?. Is this early China Ranking Event just a potential event of a real one ?