This is a bit of a weird one for me.
One of the most useless tournaments of the season. 25k top prize. No prestige, practically no prize money.
— SnookerBlog 🇫🇮🎱 (@CuePowerBlog) February 15, 2018
The Gibraltar Open has been one of the least important events in the calendar by prestige alone. When many best-of-7s events such as the Home Nations events as the locality; the Paul Hunter Classic has the fanbase; and the Riga Masters has the great introduction of the tour, the Gibraltar Open feels rather ambiguous, actually.
One of the main reasons why is because of the low (by today’s standards) prize money. The winner is given £25,000 – pennies in comparison to the rest of the tour. Only the Paul Hunter Classic has less. You could argue that these sort of events should support the main tour as minor-ranking events rather than be a full-on one. Weirdly, these events look quite out-of-sorts with such little prize money. In comparison, Gibraltar seems cheap and inferior. At least PHC has the prestige of being associated with Paul Hunter.
Also there’s the location, Gibraltar is very random. It’s unbelievable how events like Prague, Sofia and Gdynia have disappeared when there was clearly a snooker appetite there. Not saying there is none in Gibraltar of course – they are always packed of course. I do hope this event sticks around – this would be incredibly useful for the amateur Challenge Tour as it could be a good international fixture to brood the youngsters.
But this event does have meaning, though this is because it is the final tournament before the players Championship and it being the final full BO7 event in the calendar. Worryingly, only 17 of the Top 32 are playing in the tournament who either didn’t opt out before the draw (e.g. Selby/Robertson/Higgins) or withdrawn within the past week (e.g. Maguire/Carter/Yan). This, like the Paul Hunter Classic, is another perfect opportunity to get some valuable rankings points and to some, a fight for their snooker careers.
One-Year Ranking List
There are eight places available for the Top 8 players in the one-year ranking list who finish outside of the Top 64. Aditya Mehta, for example, is one of those players and could have a neat run here, with French amateur Brian Ochoiski and Australian pro Kurt Dunham hoping to prevent his chances of getting into the Last 32 of the Gibraltar Open and a stronger possibility of a fresh two-year card.
Below is the list after the Welsh Open and as of now, we could see the likes of prodigy Zhao Xintong, veteran Alfie Burden and two-time Crucible attendees Zhang Anda and Sam Baird crashing out of tour, which is madness at the moment.
| 1 | Elliot Slessor | 51,000 |
| 2 | John Astley | 32,600 |
| 3 | Tian Pengfei | 31,500 |
| 4 | Mei Xiwen | 29,500 |
| 5 | Sam Craigie | 27,600 |
| 6 | Lee Walker | 26,000 |
| 7 | Aditya Mehta | 24,100 |
| 8 | David Grace | 23,100 |
| 9 | Zhang Anda | 22,750 |
| 10 | Mitchell Mann | 22,500 |
| 11 | Ian Preece | 22,100 |
| 12 | Zhao Xintong | 21,725 |
| 13 | Alfie Burden | 21,100 |
| 14 | Sam Baird | 19,600 |
| 15 | Hammad Miah | 19,000 |
For some, this is the final chance to get points before the World Championship Qualifiers. Players ranked No.17 – No.80 will have the advantage of playing against low ranking opposition in these qualifiers, which could potentially be HUGE for tour survival. Aditya Mehta (again!) is currently ranked No.81, so will need a great run to overtake No.79 Mitchell Mann and No.80 Ken Doherty to have hoe of gaining this, assuming everyone participates in the event (why the heck wouldn’t you!?!?!?)
Qualifying for the Players Championship
This is more complex, considering so there are so many absentees. There are 16 places to qualify for this event based on the one-year ranking list up to the Gibraltar. Basically, No. 1 (Ronnie O’Sullivan) to No. 13 (Ryan Day) are safe and the only thing that will change is their seeding in the Players Championship, meaning three places are vulnerable. Though No. 15 (Graeme Dott) and No. 16 (Yan Bingtao) aren’t even attending this event, they should be relatively safe, as Cao Yupeng, Jack Lisowski, Joe Perry and to Li Hang (No.18-No.21) can only qualify by winning the trophy, depending on Barry Hawkins’s run in the Welsh Open.
No darling, I haven’t missed out who is No. 17. That is Martin Gould, but since he isn’t even participating in Gibraltar, he is automatically out of the running.
Amateur Watch
No, we are not talking about the Arsenal FC first team.
There are a number of pre-qualifying rounds, giving amateurs the opportunity to flex their muscles against the professionals and to make the most of the experience. George Pragnall went the furthest out of the amateurs in the Paul Hunter Classic, beating the likes of Barry Pinches and David Gilbert to reach the Last 16. But all eyes will be on U18 European Snooker Champion Jackson Page; U21 Champion Simon Lichtenberg and European Men’s Champion Harvey Chandler. We saw Page impress in the Welsh Open by beating Sean O’Sullivan and giving Stuart Bingham a good run. Since German Lichtenberg and Englishman Chandler have been awarded a two-year tour card starting next season, this will be the first, proper time for much to see what they are made of.
As with the other amateurs, the usual suspects are present. This includes former professionals such as James Cahill, Steven Halloworth, Jamie Cope and Andy Hicks. There are other supposed stars of the future but are still trying to break through such as Oliver Brown, Jamie Clarke, Adam Stefanow and Ashley Carty. Have to bring up that Ukranian Iulian Boiko, who is currently 12 years-old, will participate as well. He has featured in all three EBSA events this years, so he could be a very interesting prospect!
Anyways, DRAW!
Andrew Higginson vs. Stuart Bingham
Mark King vs. Nigel Bond
Noppon Saengkham vs. AMATEUR
Eden Sharav vs. AMATEUR
Ken Doherty vs. AMATEUR
Stephen Maguire w/o Kurt Maflin
Li Yuan vs. Tom Ford
Dominic Dale vs. Chris Totten
Yu Delu vs. AMATEUR
Ding Junhui vs. Rory Thor
Shaun Murphy vs. AMATEUR
Ian Preece vs. Rory McLeod
Matthew Stevens vs. Mike Dunn
Yuan Sijun vs. Cao Yupeng
Sam Craigie vs. AMATEUR
Chris Wakelin vs. Barry Hawkins
Allan Taylor vs. AMATEUR
Niu Zhuang vs. AMATEUR
Hamza Akbar vs. Jak Jones
Gerard Greene vs. Lee Walker
Paul Davison vs. Anthony McGill
David Grace vs. Ben Woollaston
Li Hang vs. AMATEUR
Oliver Lines vs. Elliot Slessor
Jamie Jones vs. Robbie Williams
Liang Wenbo vs. Alex Borg
Mitchell Mann vs. AMATEUR
Matthew Selt w/o Darren Morgan
John Astley vs. Jimmy Robertson
Robert Milkins vs. AMATEUR
Kyren Wilson vs. Mark Joyce
Daniel Wells vs. Ian Burns
Rod Lawler vs. AMATEUR
Alfie Burden vs. Ricky Walden
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh vs. Mei Xiwen
Michael Georgiou vs. Liam Highfield
Sam Baird vs. AMATEUR
Jamie Curtis-Barrett vs. Leo Fernandez
Scott Donaldson vs. Duane Jones
Joe Swail vs. AMATEUR
Brian Ochoiski vs. Aditya Mehta
Ali Carter w/o Kurt Durham
Chen Zhe vs. Tian Pengfei
Gary Wilson vs. AMATEUR
Zhang Yong vs. Billy Joe Castle
Sean O’Sullivan w/o Yan Bingtao
Peter Ebdon vs. Craig Steadman
Sanderson Lam vs. Zhao Xintong
Soheil Vahedi vs. AMATEUR
Zhou Yuelong vs. Zhang Anda
Peter Lines vs. AMATEUR
Ross Muir vs. Jack Lisowski
Mark Davis vs. Stuart Carrington
Fergal O’Brien vs. AMATEUR
Ashley Hugill vs. Anthony Hamilton
Adam Duffy vs. Joe Perry
Xu Si vs. Ryan Day
Michael White vs. AMATEUR
Luca Brecel vs. Martin O’Donnell
Jimmy White vs. Christopher Keogan
Michael Holt vs. AMATEUR
Josh Boileau vs. AMATEUR
Hammad Miah vs. Chen Zifan
Lukas Kleckers vs. Fang Xiongman
