The 2024 Women Snooker World Championship starts tomorrow, and Matt Huart has shared more images of the venue as rigging was in progress and of the nearly ready arena. I have to say that it looks fantastic.
In my previous post I erroneously wrote that the event was to be held at Bai Yulu’s club. This is what I had understood when it was first announced that the event would be held in Dongguan, China. Bai Yulu is indeed from Dongguan, but this is a bespoke venue at the Changping Gymnasium. Thank you, Matt Huart, for spotting the mistake and providing the correct information. Thank you as well for allowing me to share the photos.
This is a proper venue, not a club. Women events have been held in some fantastic clubs, but this is something else and I believe that it is an important step towards giving this tour a more “professional” image. The people in charge in recent years, and Mandy Fisher over decades, have always been “professional”, doing miracles with very little means. But image matters, and this is sending a powerful message that the women’s game is taken 100% seriously and deserves respect and proper exposure.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, the 2024 WPBSA Q-Tour Event 1 is underway …
2024/25 WPBSA Q Tour Americas 1 | How to Follow
The first event of the 2024/25 WPBSA Q Tour Americas series takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 7-10 March.
Follow the tournament via WPBSA SnookerScores following these links:
The event is the first to count towards the 2024/25 Q Tour Americas ranking list, with further events for the new season to be announced in due course.
A total of 37 cueists from Brazil will be competing in the event, including former World Snooker Tour professionals Igor Figueiredo and Itaro Santos.
The event is at the semi-finals stage and Igor Figueiredo is till to lose a frame…
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Diana Schuler (@snookydiana) on her Instagram account posted some lovely pictures / stories as well. I was very impressed by the promotion of the event, the hospitality and the splendid facilities all participants have for training at the Dongguan Snooker Academy in Changping. She was referring to the main venue as amazing and in the stories today she showed some footage of everybody waiting for the opening ceremony.
This arena does look fantastic for sure!
But it does beg the question, why can’t WST do anything like this for most, if not all their events?
Money will of course come into it, but if it can be done here it should be able to be done elsewhere.
I’m looking forward to following the progress of this event and hopefully some streaming for the later stages.
Have you heard anything about streaming? Maybe semi-finals and final?
I think that the main table will be streamed but not 100% certain.
The group stage schedule is out now as well. snooker.org have aleady implemented it.
The main table is streamed throughout the whole week, so I hope for every match that is played on it will be shown.
https://www.womenssnooker.com/world-womens-snooker-championship-2024-tournament-information/