The 2021 British Open came to the conclusion recently when Mark Williams won the title at the Mornington Arena in Leicester by beating Gary Wilson 6-4 in the final!
The British Open made a comeback after 17 years in the wilderness and the name got many people excited. But what really raised eyebrows was the format, which is completely different to the original. The format was styled like the FA Cup whereby each draw is completely random. No seeds were protected this time. The matches are BO5, increasing to the BO7s in the quarter-finals and the semi-finals. The final was a BO11.
I said that there will be plenty of shocks and there is little room for error. There were plenty. But I also said in my British Open preview that the format felt flat and too many ideas were slapped together. It felt that the British Open was a tournament only by name and not by nature, rather like a Snooker Shoot-Out XL. I was also worried that the prize money offered was far too much for a tournament with such a short format.
I watched it and I enjoyed the event far more than I expected. The matches were very decent, the tournament felt fast-paced and energetic and the random ties conjured up many intriguing stories. But many fans weren’t entirely convinced with the shorter-than-normal format as well as ITV’s coverage.
Let’s have a look at this in great depth!
The Pros
Plenty of Drama
There are plenty of talking points that wouldn’t happen until later in the draw. The obvious example is Mark Selby beating Shaun Murphy 3-2 in their first meeting since the 2021 World Championship final. This also includes some scintillating ties early on, including Judd Trump vs. Stuart Bingham, David Gilbert vs. Matthew Stevens and Martin Gould vs. Graeme Dott. These are terrific ties and some of them are a joy to watch. Two maximum breaks at a tournament as well from John Higgins and Ali Carter! Indeed, there were only 32 century breaks in this tournament, but the cagey frames bring out more tension. These players want to win in a match where there is little margin for error.
Then of course we have Mark Allen facing Reanne Evans. There were many headlines due to the obvious backstory between the pair. I watched the entire match, though I initially wasn’t planning to see it. I told myself that this would just be another match until hell froze over with Evans snubbing Allen’s offer to fistbump. I’m not going to bother who’s in the right or wrong there and instead will focus on the match itself. The quality was excellent between to two players and Evans was unlucky not to win.
Losing finalist Gary Wilson lauded praise on the tournament due to the atmosphere, crowds, coverage and tension the British Open provides. It caught the attention of many players when there were claims that the same people were anxious about how the event will be played out.
The Season Starts with a Bigger Bang
One of my biggest concerns is that the snooker season takes a long time to warm up. Not many top players attend the Riga Masters and this season’s Championship League dragged on and on and on. The Championship League felt turgid and insipid, though I understand it provided more players with opportunities to earn money and this was to replace the cancelled Chinese events.
But the British Open showed the Championship League how to make BO5s invigorating. The coverage looked busy, the lesser-ranked players got a lot of coverage including Elliot Slessor, Jimmy Robertson and Zhang Jiankang. Lots of post-match interviews and top-class punditry. The activity on social media relating to the British Open compared to the Championship League is like night and day. Maybe the British Open should be first on the calander?
The Playing Field is Blown Wide-Open
Whether this tournament will be around once the tour can go to Asia is another matter. But the random draw and short format provided lower-ranked players ample opportunity to go deep into a ranking competition. Jimmy Robertson went from being incredibly close to being relegated from the tour last season to provisionally No.48 in the rankings. Lukas Kleckers, Hammad Miah and Zhang Jiankang are three players outside the Top 64 who made the Last 16. Kleckers became the first German to reach that round in a ranking tournament!
It is great for the spectators. They get to see so many players perform in quick-fire matches and getting their money’s worth. Indeed, players will get lucky with the random draw. Unfortunately, that’s not the fault of the player. One could argue that the player could only beat an opponent who stands in his or her way. There are plenty of upsets and shock results. Williams was the only Top 16 player in the quarter-finals, that’s how open it was! Not only that, Slessor made his second ranking semi-final and Wilson his second ranking final.
A great opportunity for those players! But ultimately, it seems like no matter how open a tournament seems to be, the ones who know how to win come out on top.
The Cons
The Build-Up Was Horrendous
World Snooker Tour didn’t need to do too much work to promote the event. The ‘British Open’ is a powerful, nostalgic and patriotic name and Leicester is blessed with a lot of snooker history. Those things took care of itself. The cheap all-day tickets were fantastic. But the rest was one of the reasons why I was so negative about the British Open in the first place.
There was initially no explanation from WST as to why they chose the draw format in the first place. More than a month after that was announced, chairman Jason Ferguson explained that the format was so short because the event was organised at short notice and needed to appeal to the broadcasters while accommodating 128 players. The fact this wasn’t explained from the start was very poor in my opinion and left a number of confused fans in the dark.
The next point is a personal one for me. I was really excited to see the live first-round draw of the British Open on Youtube. I was really disappointed to know that the “live” draw was pre-recorded and that the draw was already published by the time the “live” coverage started. Even though the other draws were indeed live, the magic of the “FA Cup-esque” draw was lost for me.
It’s Way, Way Too Short!
It’s been the constant niggle throughout this tournament. The reason why there are so many deciders is that BO5 matches are far too short. It feels a shame to me when a match finishes at 3-2 because it showed that had potential for a greater and longer battle if it was allowed to.
The BO5 format is to allow them to stage a tournament within a week with four tables. It may provide no-margin-for-error snooker but there is no story to tell in that match. There is almost no time for players to apply the skills they’ve been honing on a daily basis. Is this considered ‘proper snooker’? I don’t think so. Would this format be allowed if it didn’t have such a grand name as the ‘British Open’? Probably not. Does the random draw promote luck? Yes.
A lot of fans are worried about the way matches are getting shorter and shorter over the past few years. It is worrying when BO7s start to feel like a longer match like we are desensitised by it all. People complained that a BO11 final is too short, which is fair enough because some showed concerns about the legitimacy of the Gibraltar Open in recent years. The problem with the complaint of short matches is that won’t be detected by the viewing figures. We may enjoy enjoying snooker regardless but it doesn’t mean everyone are fully behind the format.
It does seem odd that they couldn’t fit a BO17 final into that week. There was a morning and an afternoon free on Sunday to watch some snooker. It just felt like time wasted. I wouldn’t mind seeing the event start the previous Sunday just to build the event up quickly and get the live audiences in from the start. That way, longer matches can be fitted in. But it’s so frustrating that the reaction to some wanting longer matches is creating events with fewer frames.
We Can Only See One Table
This is a disadvantage ITV has compared to the likes of the BBC and Eurosport. ITV specialise in prestigious events with short fields, such as the Champion of Champions, Players Championship and the Tour Championship. These events usually start with the one-table set-up from the very start. But ITV’s ability to switch tables during their coverage hasn’t been fantastic.
We have been focused on one table. During that time we missed most of Ali Carter’s maximum break and a number of close matches, particularly in the latter stages where some had black-ball finishes. The switch either came to the last couple of balls or we hear the afterthought in the commentary. I am being picky, but this is something to address.
The Tournament Is Too Top-Heavy
The winner’s cheque is £100,000. The runners-up earn £45,000. Semi-finalists enjoy £20,000 while quarter-finalists £12,000. Those prizes are too much for an event that is so short and a random draw.
Let’s put this into perspective. A player will play more frames to win the Championship League, the Gilbratar Open or one of the Home Nations events and will still earn less than the British Open winner – £30,000 less for a Home Nations winner! The British Open winner earns the same as the World Grand Prix winner, despite the latter needing to win more frames against the best 32 performers of the season. That just doesn’t make sense at all.
There will be an article on the ranking points system, but I will mention its relevance here. Players are realising they need just one good run to stay on tour rather than consistency because the ranking points system is so top-heavy. Peter Devlin mentioned this idea to me in our recent interview together. The allocation of ranking points of the British Open certainly proves his point. This tournament proves that consistency matters less and less and it is such a shame that consistency isn’t rewarded as much as before.
More effort should be made in matching the format of the events with the appropriate amount of prize money.
Would I Like To See The British Open Again?
I wouldn’t mind and I wasn’t sure if I would be writing this at the end of that event. But improvements will have to be made. You can probably tell that I wrote more of my concerns than the positives. I’m just taking into account that I missed watching snooker anyway!
I love the variety but I still maintain that the format is strange. So strange in fact, that some already degrade it as one of the ‘lesser’ ranking tournaments. I would decrease the winner’s prize money and increase the length of matches from the Last 16 onwards. Maybe even start the Sunday before to accommodate it?
Do I think any changes will be made? Probably not, but it’s a nice idea.
But it is great to see snooker back on the mainstream again, seeing many interesting faces and styles and more opportunities for players to showcase their personalities. The punditry and commentary team have been great and apart from ITV’s flaw, the broadcaster has done quite a decent job. The tournament looks fun, exciting and tense, especially to those who have a shorter attention span. But it is still a shame that the name carries the tournament a lot and the short format is a concern with many fans, including myself.
I agree with practically every point that you have made.