Mumbai, March 9, 2015: With a galaxy of the world’s best players all geared up for
action, a snooker extravaganza is set to unfold as the 2nd Indian Open
Snooker World Ranking Tournament, organised by the Billiards & Snooker
Federation of India (BSFI) cues off at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Kalina on
Tuesday, March 10.
The 64-player draw includes defending champion Ding Junhui
of China, the top ranked player at number 4 in the world and the
likes of Englishmen Judd Trump and Ricky Walden, world ranked 6th and
8th respectively and Hong Kong’s 10th ranked Marco Fu. The top three
ranked players Mark Selby of England ,
Neil Robertson of Australia
and another English legend Ronnie O’Sullivan have decided to give this event a
miss.
Junhui, who comes into the tournament having suffered first
round defeats in the Welsh Open and German Masters last month and with his last
title win being the Asian Tour Event One in China last June will definitely
have to lift up his game if he harbours any hopes of retaining his crown, which
he won last year in New Delhi.
The 27-year-old Chinese awaits the winner of the Wild Card
round match between India's Neeraj Kumar and Thailand’s 61st ranked Thepchaiya
Un-Nooh, in the opening round on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, last year’s runner-up Aditya Mehta is the only
Indian to have directly qualified for the main draw. The 29-year-old Mehta, who
is ranked 50th in the world had defeated Hammad Miah of England in the
Indian Open qualifying round in Barnsley Metrodome, England in February, and
will take on Englishman Mark King, ranked 33rd, in the first round on
Wednesday. The Indian will go into the match with the confidence of his good
showing in the Welsh Open where he reached the third round before losing to
Scot Alan McManus and will look to put up a repeat performance.
Six Indians, including Pankaj Advani, a multiple world
champion in both snooker and billiards, will participate in the pre-tournament
wild card qualifying round. Besides Advani, Neeraj Kumar, Brijesh Damani,
Dharmendra Lilly, Sumit Talwar and Faisal Khan, all having won wild cards
during the Indian qualifying legs, will pit their skill against six other
players from England , Scotland , China
and Thailand .
The winners will earn berths in the 64-player main draw.
The 29-year-old Advani meets Scot Rhys Clark
on Monday evening and if he manages to progress to the tournament proper will
be up against 22-year-old Englishman Chris Wakelin in the first round.
The other leading players who will showcase their skills
would be former World champions John Higgins, Mark Williams, Peter Ebdon and
Ken Doherty.
The opening day will feature 18 matches starting from 10
am. While DD Sport will telecast throughout the day, interspersed with their regular
programs, the evening session will be telecast live on NDTV.
Format: The tournament will be played on a knockout basis and
all matches up to and including semi-finals will be of best-of-7 frames (no
intervals) and the final will be played over best-of-9 frames.
Prize money break-up:
Winner: 50,000 pounds.
Runner-up: 25,000 pounds.
Losing semi-finalists (x2): 13,500 pounds each.
Losing quarter-finalists (x4): 9,000 pounds each.
Round 3 losers (x8): 6,000 pounds each.
Round 2 losers (x16): 3,000 pounds each.
Round 1 losers (x32): 2,000 pounds each.
Press release
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