By Elliott West
“Last week we had to cancel the Turkish Masters after several months of trying to get that event over the line, which was disappointing for us and the players. It was always our intention to replace that event and fill the space in the calendar.”
Steve Dawson, Chairman of World Snooker.
Introduction
I was saddened to hear the news that the Turkish Masters this year will be cancelled due to not being able to secure funding in time. I wasn’t the only one with Stephen Maguire taking a swipe at the men in suits in charge of snooker, saying that the game is dying and that they are not doing their jobs properly. That statement came before World Snooker announced a new tournament with a name that harks back to a bygone event, The Classic. The WST Classic slots into the March calendar will run from March 16-22 and will be held at the Morningside Arena in Leicester. Open to all 128 players on the tour, the tournament has a total prize fund of £427,000 with a winner’s share of £80,000.
Such a Shame
The cancellation of the Turkish Masters is frankly a kick in the teeth for players and fans alike. Having already suffered a false start last year due to high Covid cases in Turkey and a breakout of forest fires, the tournament did eventually come to fruition in March 2022. It was refreshing to watch snooker being played outside the UK, especially after three years of bubbles and events that were largely held in Milton Keynes. Much was said about the very colourful magic carpet where the event was held at the Nirvana Cosmopolitan Hotel in Antalya but let’s face it, the tournament was a success and broke new ground by bringing a televised snooker event to a country that has a deep love for snooker and especially billiards.
It also launched the snooker career of Alisha Singh who was popular as a presenter and MC, going on to further success at the Gibraltar Open. You only have to look at my recent piece on Grandma Fatma, the snooker-loving, Turkish pensioner who loves nothing more than to sit in front of the television and watch snooker. A lady who has almost goddess-like status in her country and caused my view count on my website to spin around like a Catherine wheel for a week. So it seemed to be a stroke of genius by World Snooker in partnership with The Turkish Billiards Federation and Big Break Promotions to secure a deal until the 2024/25 season.
The tournament was won by Judd Trump who defeated Matthew Selt 10-4 in the final, a win that earned the Bristolian a bumper £100,000 in prize money and really gave the event a high profile with a top eight player winning it. My fear is that the Turkish could be consigned to the snooker filing cabinet like the ill-fated 2008 Bahrain Championship and the much-advertised Saudi Arabia Masters that has yet to see the light of day despite Barry Hearn securing a ten-year deal worth 2.5 million pounds. A tournament that is unlikely to go ahead with WST is more likely to try and find another country in the region to host a similar event.
Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic and the Turkish Masters will reappear in the next calendar but it doesn’t bode well when the snooker authorities have had a one-year window to secure a new deal and in the end for whatever reason, the event remained firmly on a UK runway, failing to take off to the much-promised Turkish climbs. With Coronavirus still highly prevalent in China and the promise to bring snooker back to this country highly doubtful, especially with ten Chinese players including Yan Bingtao and Liang Wenbo being investigated for suspected match-fixing, it wasn’t a surprise that the majority of the 128 players on the tour scrambled to take part in the Snooker Shoot Out to get some televised table and the chance to make a few quid. An event that is still not warmly embraced by a few due to its rowdy atmosphere with an audience that would feel more at home at a darts tournament. A sentiment shared by Stephen Maguire.
‘“I don’t want to play in it, don’t like it, but there’s no tournaments coming out. I can’t be selfish for my family, so I need to play in the tournament”.
Stephen Maguire
Afterthoughts
Whatever happens, snooker remains in a relatively good place and definitely weathered the storm of Covid. We have heard accusations of the decline and death of snooker before and in the end, nothing as nightmarish as ever happened. Snooker did a survivor, it evolves and adapts to whoever is steering the wheel of the ship. This is a pothole in the road moment and it will fade but you will always get criticism when the snooker journey veers slightly off course.
