It’s that time of the year again! The 2023 World Championship effectively starts on Monday and WST had shared some news about the “side events” that are traditionally organised during the Crucible.
This year’s World Disability Snooker Day will be held at the Sheffield Winter Garden on Wednesday 19 April 2023.
Following its successful return during the Cazoo World Championship last year, the day aims to raise awareness of the opportunities for people with disabilities to pick up a cue and get involved in snooker.
The day will once again be based at the WPBSA Cue Zone, with WPBSA Snooker coaches Steve Rutter and Ian McAllister on site throughout to oversee activities featuring invited players and officials representing WDBS. The day will also be featured during the live BBC coverage of the World Championship.
The event is jointly organised by World Snooker Tour (WST) and World Disability Billiards and Snooker (WDBS), a body which has staged approximately 40 disability snooker events across the UK and mainland Europe since 2015.
WDBS aims to provide opportunities for people around the world with disabilities to play snooker competitively, with the long-term goal of taking the sport back to the Paralympics for the first time since 1988.
GET INVOLVED
As always, WDBS is encouraging everyone who supports disability snooker to get involved on the day, whether on site at the Cue Zone, or online via social media.
Whether you are a player, official, coach or a fan of the sport, help us to spread the word and encourage more people with disabilities to pick up a cue and try snooker by using the hashtag #DisabilitySnooker
I can’t recommend you enough to go and watch those players. They are admirable. The level is surprisingly high and their creativity when it comes to overcoming their disabilities is remarkable. They deserve your support. A few years back, Mark Allen came to support the event, and tried to play a mini match, sat in a wheelchair. He found it extraordinary difficult and was full of praise for his opponent.
World Women’s Snooker Day will run during the upcoming Cazoo World Snooker Championship on Wednesday 26 April.
Once again, the day will see activities organised at the Sheffield Winter Garden with the aim of raising awareness of the World Women’s Snooker Tour and the opportunities available for women to pick up a cue and play our sport competitively at all levels.
Through the support of snooker’s world governing body the WPBSA, women’s snooker has seen significant growth in recent years, with nine international ranking events held during the current season, highlighted by the recent 40th staging of the World Women’s Snooker Championship won by Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan in Thailand.
The WWS Tour is now an established qualifying pathway to the World Snooker Tour, while continuing to promote inclusivity and welcoming players of all age groups and levels of ability.
The day will be coordinated by both World Snooker Tour and WWS, with WPBSA Snooker Coaches Mark Peevers and for the first time multiple ranking event winner Tessa Davidson, who will be joined by selected Tour players to help promote women’s snooker during the BBC’s World Championship coverage.
GET INVOLVED
As in previous years, players and supporters of women’s snooker are encouraged to support the day and to help promote the sport to women and girls everywhere, whether in Sheffield on the day, or online via social media using the #WomensSnooker hashtag.
WST and the WPBSA will offer a prize of £40,000 for a 147 made at the Crucible during the 2023 Cazoo World Championship, and £10,000 for a maximum made during the qualifying rounds.
These bonuses are on top of the £15,000 high break prize which will apply throughout the whole event.
Last year at the Crucible, Neil Robertson became the eighth player to make a 147 at the famous venue. This year marks the 40th anniversary of Cliff Thorburn’s Crucible maximum, the first made in Sheffield.
The qualifying rounds at the English Institute of Sport – Sheffield run from April 3rd to 12th, followed by the main event from April 15th to May 1st.
If more than one player makes a 147, then the prize money will be shared equally.
Crucible Maximums 1983 – Cliff Thorburn 1992 – Jimmy White 1995 – Stephen Hendry 1997 – Ronnie O’Sullivan 2003 – Ronnie O’Sullivan 2005 – Mark Williams 2008 – Ronnie O’Sullivan 2008 – Ali Carter 2009 – Stephen Hendry 2012 – Stephen Hendry 2020 – John Higgins 2022 – Neil Robertson
And, finally, yet to be confirmed but coming from a source I 100% trust …
WST/WPBSA are considering a change regarding the “Crucible” seeding.
To make it more exciting, the “seeds” ranked 9-16, will this year, be drawn randomly in the draw alongside the 16 qualifiers. It’s a bit like at the Masters where the players ranked 1-8 are actually seeded whilst the other 8 players are drawn against them. Only, at the Crucible, this year we could have 24 players “drawn” at random, whilst the top 8 would be actually seeded. If the idea proves successful, and the fans love it, this new “format” could become permanent.
…. and this last paragraph was an April fool of course …
5 thoughts on “Crucible Time is coming, anticipation is building … some news.”
The results of the Tour Championship thus far mean that Neil Robertson has moved from Ronnie’s side of the draw to Selby’s, and he will be replaced by either Shaun Murphy or Kyren Wilson…
If the World Championship draw uses the established format, then the seeds in the top quarter will be: O’Sullivan, Ding, Brecel and Williams. That has already been determined by the results so far in the Tour Championship. Perhaps one of the reasons why WST are considering a change is to avoid people predicting the draw, distracting from the Tour Championship as a tournament in its own right. There’s a bit soo much of this in snooker: distractions caused by positions on various lists.
The problem, is that changing from the established structure to a random one, will inevitably lead to some players (and their fans) being aggrieved by getting a more difficult draw than they would have done. Once again, if WST are going to propose this, they should have done it months in advance, not 2 weeks.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
The results of the Tour Championship thus far mean that Neil Robertson has moved from Ronnie’s side of the draw to Selby’s, and he will be replaced by either Shaun Murphy or Kyren Wilson…
If the World Championship draw uses the established format, then the seeds in the top quarter will be: O’Sullivan, Ding, Brecel and Williams. That has already been determined by the results so far in the Tour Championship. Perhaps one of the reasons why WST are considering a change is to avoid people predicting the draw, distracting from the Tour Championship as a tournament in its own right. There’s a bit soo much of this in snooker: distractions caused by positions on various lists.
The problem, is that changing from the established structure to a random one, will inevitably lead to some players (and their fans) being aggrieved by getting a more difficult draw than they would have done. Once again, if WST are going to propose this, they should have done it months in advance, not 2 weeks.
Today is April 1st…
I hope that you are right…
Indeed it is… 😉