Ronnie O’Sullivan postures with the prize after winning versus Judd Trump on day 7 of the 2024 Spreadex World Grand Prix at Morningside Arena on January 21, 2024 in Leicester, England.
Tai Chengzhe|Visual China Group|Getty Images
Saudi Arabia will hold its very first significant invitational snooker occasion in March as the kingdom continues to make large financial investments into a growing variety of sports.
The “Riyadh Season World Masters of Snooker” will happen in between March 4 to March 6 at Boulevard Arena in the capital of Riyadh.
The inaugural occasion will include a few of the world’s leading snooker gamers, consisting of Ronnie O’Sullivan– extensively acknowledged as one of the most skilled gamers in the sport’s history– 2019 world champ Judd Trump and 2023 world champ Luca Brecel.
Games of snooker– a hint sport like billiards that is popular in the U.K. and China– will happen under present World Snooker guidelines however with the intro of a 23 rd ball described as the “Riyadh Season” ball. This golden ball will deserve 20 points however will just be pottable on finishing an optimum break.
It isn’t clear when this ball would be presented to the basic table set-up, however it does imply the greatest possible break at the occasion will be 167– instead of the standard optimum rating of 147.
“We are thrilled to be hosting our first-ever professional snooker tournament in the Kingdom,” stated Turki Alalshikh, chairman of the Saudi General Entertainment Authority.
“Snooker is watched and played by millions around the world and we look forward to welcoming some of the greatest players and snooker fans to our country and showing them what Saudi Arabia and Riyadh Season has to offer,” Alalshikh stated in a declaration releasedJan 18.
Saudi Arabia has actually invested a remarkable quantity on sports financial investments over the last few years, putting cash into soccer, Formula One, golf, tennis and boxing.
Critics have actually consistently implicated the kingdom of “sportswashing,” or utilizing sports to sidetrack from human rights abuses in the nation. Saudi authorities have regularly rejected these claims.
‘ A substantial reward’
Seven- time world champ O’Sullivan mentioned his enjoyment about playing in Saudi Arabia quickly after winning the World Grand Prix title for the 3rd time on Sunday.
“What’s the prize for a 167? Have they announced it?” O’Sullivan stated in an interview released on the World Snooker Tour’s YouTube channel. “I’m sure it’ll be a hefty prize.”
He included: “Listen, the Saudis can do what they like — they’re a powerful outfit. I think it’ll be good, it’d be great to get out there and play, every other sport seems to be doing stuff in Saudi so it’d be great to get out there.”
Saudi Arabia’s enthusiastic strategies to make its domestic soccer league a worldwide center of super stars suffered an obstacle recently.
England global Jordan Henderson on Thursday suddenly ended his playing time in Saudi Arabia’s Pro League and picked to sign for Dutch side Ajax on a two-and-a-half-year offer.
Henderson’s early departure from Saudi Arabia triggered numerous to hypothesize about the prospective reputational damage to the nation’s leading domestic league.
