European Masters Snooker – Issues and Talking Points
The European Masters, the 11th ranking event of the 2021-22 snooker season, begins this week in Milton Keynes.
While we have already looked at the contenders on the Sports Gazette, snooker has a knack of providing plenty of stories outside of the table.
In 2022 alone, we have seen Mark Selby open up about his mental health struggles and Judd Trump continue his war against ties (bowtie or otherwise).
The European Masters is no different, so here are some of the talking points going into the tournament.
Getting new fans into snooker
https://twitter.com/WeAreWST/status/1482703883973578754?s=20&t=64-Knua3huutAdgdSvjSGA
Snooker has been in an almost-perpetual state of fear around the future of the sport, and as a result there have been continuous attempts to attract new audiences.
This season’s Masters has been modernised, with pop music playing between frames to keep fans entertained. Often described as the ‘T20 of Snooker’, the Shoot Out is a single-frame format with shot clocks, and is being taken more seriously by the top players since it became a ranking event in 2017.
These attempts have been successful. The Shoot Out is proving its worth, bringing in a new, more casual, audience.
During the Masters players loved the energetic atmosphere at Alexandra Palace, which has led to players showing a more passionate side to them.
"Will you be watching the #CazooMasters this weekend?"
Snooker fans: pic.twitter.com/hxZyeL44mf
— World Snooker Tour (@WeAreWST) January 14, 2022
However, when new people begin to watch snooker, questions around whether they are familiar with the etiquette of sport arise, with issues around crowd conduct increasing.
In the UK Championship, Ronnie O’Sullivan sat down in the middle of a break in response to crowd disturbances. The crowd were leaving another table that had finished its frame.
Furthermore, Neil Robertson has spoken on twitter about the abuse he received at the final of the Players Championship.
Snooker crowds can be a partisan bunch, and Barry Hawkins being a Englishman means Robertson, as an Aussie, was never going to be the favourite in a final held in Wolverhampton.
https://twitter.com/nr147/status/1493001327378632706?s=20&t=FTJNndpFau2KsIK4PoTE3Q
However, it was disappointing to see Robertson addressing the abuse before celebrating his win, although in his second tweet he did acknowledge the crowd in the final and the tournament as a whole.
We hope at the European Masters we see the positives of crowds, and not the negatives.
Covid restricting the snooker landscape
The good and bad from the fans this season has made it easy to forget that snooker has only welcomed back fans from last season’s World Championship following last season mostly occurring without fans.
Before the World Championship, tournaments were held in Covid-bubbles. With the exception of two tournaments that were played in Newport, every tournament was held at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes.
While that thankfully is no longer the case this season, the impact of Covid has significantly hindered snooker’s effort to export the game worldwide.
There are only three world ranking tournaments this season that have been held outside of Britain, compared to seven tournaments held in five foreign countries in the 2019-20 season.
The European Masters was originally supposed to held in Furth, Germany, where the qualifiers took place back in October last year. However, it was moved to Milton Keynes over Covid fears.
The China Open looks like it will be cancelled for a third successive season, which does not do the sport any favours given the popularity within China and the rest of Asia.
Having seen the atmospheres from British crowds this season, it would be great to see similar sights elsewhere, especially in places where there will be a home player for fans to root for.
Changing of the guard?
The biggest sign of the changes in snooker is that top seven players this season all come from different countries (China, Australia, Belgium, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland respectively).
This is an impressive achievement for snooker, but the sport has not helped themselves by the fact that two of this top seven will not be at the European Masters.
This by itself is not necessarily a problem, but it becomes one if there was a chance that they were more likely to make it if the qualifiers for the tournament were not all the way back in October.
Zhao Xintong lost in the qualifiers but has since been in impressive form, winning the UK Championship and then the German Masters to become to top this season’s ranking and rise in the world rankings from 29th to seventh.
While you can still argue for that it is Zhao Xintong’s fault since he lost his qualifier, the same cannot be said for Mark Williams, who missed the qualifiers because he contracted Covid.
Considering the gap in time between the qualifiers and the tournament, as well as the fact that the top four are doing their qualifiers this week, Williams can definitely feel hard done.
Issues around the cut-off point were also present in the Masters, where players felt that the draw was done too early after an in-form Luca Brecel narrowly missed out.
It benefits snooker to have the best and most entertaining snookers players featuring in tournaments. Xintong has been one of the most entertaining players this season, having the highest percentage of frames with 50+ breaks.
While Williams has not been as entertaining, the fact that he has the second-highest percentage of frames won and that only Robertson and O’Sullivan have a better match win-rate this season suggests that he could have gone far in the tournament.
Regardless of the reasons, two in-form top level players missing out on a tournament does not look good.
To read about the main contenders of the European Masters, read Roberto Petrucco’s piece here.
To read more snooker pieces, check out our interview with Mohamed El-Kammah, president of the African Billiards and Snooker Confederation, here.
