The snooker season of 2020/2021 will start in less than a fortnight. This season will be one of the weirdest yet, considering a lot of events will take place in Milton Keynes because of the pandemic.
There are lots of things to talk about for the upcoming season but very few answers. The obvious starting point is to know if World Snooker will be played abroad at all this season. China in particular won’t hold events till next year and it is unknown due to the pandemic when this will happen. The other topic is whether Ronnie O’Sullivan can win his 7th World title, but I’ll hold that off since we are a long way away from the 2021 World Championships!
Here are four talking points of the 2020/2021 season!
The King Of The Crucible Is Back.
This is a bolt from the blue. Did anyone see this coming?????
Your eyes and ears have not deceived you. Stephen Hendry, the record-breaking seven-time World Champion and arguably the greatest player to ever play snooker, has come out of retirement. The 51 year-old hasn’t played professional snooker since the 2012 World Championships. He said in a statement according to World Snooker:
It is absolutely incredible for someone like Stephen Hendry to make a comeback. This is box office and will be amazing for snooker. There were glimpses of what he can do when he reached the 2020 World Seniors Championship semi-finals, losing to Jimmy White 4-2. Hendry credited SightRight for helping him gain some form and belief. The 51 year-old hasn’t played professional snooker since the 2012 World Championships.
But there is a part of me that is slightly apprehensive. Maybe I am worried if this will be an anti-climax, similar to the comeback of Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher, who is regarded as the greatest of all time, between 2010-2012. Will this tarnish his reputation? Hendry is the third player on the current tour on an invitational card alongside legends Ken Doherty and Jimmy White. Is it a good look that these players are given cards when they could be used to develop younger talent or invested into Q School instead?
But this is the seven-time World Champion. The legend and arguably the greatest snooker player is back. Expectations are low and he won’t be full-time, but I can’t imagine Hendry would take up the challenge just to make up the numbers. Let’s enjoy it all for now and see what happens!
How can Judd Trump follow his six-title-winning season?
I wrote about this in depth here, so I’ll be brief.
It will be almost impossible for Judd Trump to match the success of last season this time around. It will be incredibly difficult for anyone to match Judd’s six-title haul under normal circumstances. Due to national restrictions in China, Judd won’t be able to extent his impressive record in China, as well as defending his World Open and International Championship titles.
Ronnie O’Sullivan’s World Championship victory shows that Judd has to wrestle back the limelight. But it is very difficult to do under these circumstances. Not to mention that Judd’s form since lockdown hasn’t been anywhere near as good since before he won the Players Championship. Though his C-game has significantly improved, it is unlikely to be enough to win trophies. How many will Trump win this season?
When will the youngsters finally step up to the plate?
It’s been well documented that the young generation are struggling to overcome the veterans among the elite. Youngsters Scott Donaldson, Luca Brecel and Yan Bingtao won trophies last season but they aren’t achievements that set the world alight yet. Everyone rightly talks about the Class of 92 showing their legendary status by staying in the Top 16 for so long. But it is how long before they get overtaken that is the concern.
Ronnie O’Sullivan caused a huge stir by slamming the depth of young talent in snooker during the 2020 World Championships. He claimed young players “would do well as half-decent amateurs, not even amateurs … I would have to lose an arm and a leg to fall out of the top 50.” His ungracious comments were panned by critics but were there was a silent admittance that there is some truth to what Ronnie had said.
O’Sullivan clarified his comments by saying that youngsters need “to have good months and years to hang around long enough“. He pointed towards 2020 Worlds finalist Kyren Wilson and recent Rookie of the Year winner Louis Heathcote as examples of who could go far. But it’s not enough for such few players to do it. With the number of teenagers turning professional (Maddocks, Hill, Gao, J Wilson, etc.) making their debuts this season, it seems they need to prove Ronnie wrong many times over and take the game by the scruff of its neck.
Speaking of which, 14 year-old Iulian Boiko will face O’Sullivan in the initial group of the Championship League!
Will there be another maiden ranking winner this year?
There are a number of first-time ranking winners since the recent explosion of ranking tournaments. There have been at least two players winning their first ranking trophy every season since 2014/2015. Last season, Yan Bingtao won the 2019 Riga Masters and Michael Holt broke his duck by clinching the 2020 Snooker Shoot-Out.
This begs the question to who will finally win their first ranking event. It is likely that we might see a player do that in the Championship League, as the tournament changed ranking status for the first time this season.
Four-time ranking finalist David Gilbert and three-time ranking finalist Jack Lisowski are still the obvious contenders. Gary Wilson is not far behind. Since the 2020 World Championships, the pool has suddenly got wider thanks to stand-out performers Kurt Maflin and Noppon Saengkham. Though Scott Donaldson also hasn’t reached a ranking final yet, he could be a name in the hat over the next few seasons.
For me, Scott Donaldson’s success is a greater achievement than the subsequent editions of the ‘Championship League’. I don’t really recognise the distinction of ‘ranking tournaments’ anyway – I have my own criteria for ‘major tournaments’ based on the strength of the field and length of matches.
As for young players, the WST website published an interview with Fan Zhengyi – they actually spoke to him! This is welcome, as usually we don’t get to hear from the asian players, who have to overcome special challenges at a very young age. But we have seen by recent announcements that the main priority is on players from the 1990’s, not the youth.