Snooker: TSN reveal season line-up
Friday, 16 February 2001 16:42The Sportsmasters Network have finally revealed the full line-up of events for the inaugural season of their rival snooker tour with the climax being a world championship in Birmingham next April. On several key dates, TSN's tournaments will clash with those that form the official tour organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.
This means that this year's Embassy World Championship at the Crucible, which gets underway in April, will be the last time in the foreseeable future that all of the sport's top starts will compete together for a world crown, as next year this tournament will clash with TSN's inaugural world championship, and the top 16 players in the world will be divided between the two tours.
TSN's Grand Prix at Sheffield which will run from August 28 to September 9, will clash with the WPBSA's newly sponsored LG Cup while TSN's UK Championship is also set to go head-to-head with the WPBSA's UK championship at York in December. Altough TSN has failed to secure any major television deal so far, its chairman Ian Doyle is confident that it will happen soon. "Snooker is the second most popular television sport behind football and I honestly believe that getting television is not going to be a problem for us," he said today.
Both tours are still working hard to secure the signatures of the world's top snooker players who have yet to declare which tour they will play with. So far, Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Mark Williams, Jimmy White and Ken Doherty have all signed up with TSN while John Higgins will remain with the WPBSA.
Filed by Amanda Fennelly
