Crème-de-la crème of the world snooker would be part of the highly prestigious Indian Open World Ranking Tournament to be held here in October.
leading stars like John Higgins, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Steve Davis would lead the 64-players field of the tournament carrying prize money of 300,000 pound and winner’s prize money to be 50,000 pound. The tournament to be played for five days starting from October 14th will be played at the le Meridien hotel.
The Qualifier for this event, with 128 cueists, will be played at England and top 64 players from that tournament will fly down to India for the prestigious meet, it was announced by the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI) at a press meet here on Wednesday evening.
Eight-time world champion Pankaj Advani and 2012 Asian Snooker Champion Aditya Mehta will spearhead the Indian challenge in the tournament. In addition, India will field six wild card entries to make it a 70-player event to be played on four tables.
On the occasion, BSFI signed a three-year agreement with the World Snooker body to host the championship in India. Seven-time world champion Geet Sethi, who was present in the meet, said that, this is a big opportunity for India to get inspired by the performance of the world class field.
"It’s great for Indian cuesports because events like these will inspire other cueists in the country to reach for the stars like achieved by Pankaj and Aditya. Panjaj and Aditya too will be excited as they will be taking on the best in the world in front of their fans.
“This tournament will reinforce Pankaj and Aditya’s belief system to play and take the game to a new level. The event will hugely inspire the young crop of cueists in the countryIt will be a top-class event as the world’s top cueists will be seen in action. Players like Davis, Ronnie, Higgins...These are the gladiators of the world snooker," Sethi felt.
Also present on the meet, Jason Ferguson, chairman of World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association said that the world body is happy with the effort made by the Indian counterpart and they are happy to see the return of the game to its home.
Ferguson reminded the gathering that it was in 1874 in Indian city of Jabalpur, the game of snooker started its journey. Sethi also felt that it is time that Indian snooker to make new bases with club-level game.
“The way for development of snooker in India is to popularise it to the market like playing at clubs will make a base and will give more talent. Also, we get to have more icons,” Sethi said.