Mark Allen has withdrawn from this weekend’s World Mixed Doubles due to personal circumstances, and has been replaced by Mark Selby.
As the next highest player in the world rankings, Selby joins the field and will play alongside Rebecca Kenna.
The tournament at Manchester Central features four teams, each with one man and one woman player. The event gets underway on Saturday at 1pm. The teams are:
Neil Robertson and Mink Nutcharut Luca Brecel and Reanne Evans Judd Trump and Baipat Siripaporn Mark Selby and Rebecca Kenna
Selby and Kenna played together at the inaugural staging of this event last season, reaching the final before losing to Robertson and Nutcharut.
Stephen Hendry decides not to play World Snooker Championship qualifying
Phil Haigh
Stephen Hendry says he will not be playing in World Snooker Championship qualifying this season, meaning he will end the campaign winless on the professional circuit.
The seven-time world champion returned to the main tour in the 2020/21 season, accepting a two-year tour card, which was given again at the start of the 2022/23 campaign.
There were some notable wins in the first two years of the return, beating Jimmy White in qualifying for the 2021 World Championship, then picking up victories over the likes of Michael White and Chris Wakelin the following season.
However, the two most recent campaigns have been fruitless, with no wins from four matches last season and none from five outings in the current campaign.
There will be no more matches this season for the 55-year-old, after he posted a comment on Fergal O’Brien’s Instagram ahead of World Championship qualifying.
He explained on the WST Snooker Club podcast: ‘I’ve not entered the World qualifying this year.
‘There’s a couple of reason, it starts the day after the Tour Championship finishes. I’ll have been working for TV all week and obviously not had much chance to practice, which I haven’t really done.
‘I’m not going to bother this year. There’s a lot of things to do in between the Tour Championship and World Championship, so I thought I’d give it a miss this year.’
As announced earlier this month by the WPBSA: ‘Any current professional players who do not enter the tournament will be replaced from the 2023 Q School Order of Merit.’
Hendry’s current two-year invitational tour card will come to an end when this season is over and it is yet to be seen whether he will be offered another one or choose to accept it if he is.
Really, Stephen Hendry shouldn’t get another invitational tour card. He’s not done anything with the opportunities he’s been offered. When he first came back on the tour, he said that his goal was to play at the Crucible again, if only once, but now he’s telling us that it never was a “comeback”. The very simple truth is that he’s not good enough and hasn’t the motivation to work hard on his game which he would need to do to stand any hope of getting results. He’s doing a lot of great things on social media and in commentary to promote and support his sport and he’s excellent at that. All credits to him for that but IF WST is to give wildcards to older legends or retired player it should go to one of hard-working long time servants of the game who will actually use it and try their best to make the most of it.
9 thoughts on “Tour News – 28 March 2024 – Allen Withdrawal and Hendry No-Show”
“I don’t want to name names, but I know one player who is a pro for 12 years, is nearing his 40th birthday, has never been ranked higher than 60th in the world and keeps dropping off and re-qualifying through the Q-School. Do you think that’s good for the sport?”
Hey now, Ian Burns has only qualified through Q-School twice. Three other times were through the 1-year ranking list, and once through the European Tour Order of Merit.
Fair comment, and Ian Burns certainly loves his sport despite having only reaped modest success otherwise he wouldn’t put himself through all that. I have only respect for him and other so-called “journeymen”. But my point was that the qualifying routes as they have been for a very long time don’t help to promote young talents and, in the long term, that’s extremely bad for the sport, just as the prevailing “nostalgia” culture” is as-well. The current money list ranking system aims at forcing players to play in about everything and prevents WST to organise “telling” events targeting “specific” populations. An ELO type rating system would allow that. Would allow events to be run in parallel too and would allow properly organised pro-ams to be taken into account, which would no doubts be a boost for the amateur game. It would “blur” the frontier between “amateurs” and “professionals”. But WST almost certainly doesn’t want that because it would weaken their “monopoly”.
Whenever Stephen enters a 128 ranking event, it takes away an opportunity for an amateur top up.
Invitational tour cards should be used in preliminary rounds only. Either against other invitationals or amateur top ups.
That would render them pretty useless Michael. Their “official” purpose is to reward players who have done a lot for the sport (intentionally or not). The other purpose is clearly commercial. They go to players who are going to put bums on seats, or viewers in front of the telly, and that, indirectly is good for the whole tour, and the sport in general. In that respect, Jimmy and Ken clearly fulfil their “duties”. Stephen doesn’t, not at the table anyway. Of course, part of the issue is how much snooker lives on nostalgia. The media, and the BBC in particular, are “guilty” for that. How many more times will we get to watch the final balls of the 1985 final? Nobody under the age of 45 can have actual memories of that match, they would have been at most 6 years old when it happened! When you rationally think about that, it’s nonsense. How can young people relate to that?
I believe the WST should be played as a sport rather than a TV show. There are invitationals, exhibitions etc for that. But to be treated as a legitimate professional sport it should be just the best players, selected on merit from a level playing field. No promotions. No gimmicks. Let the sport speak for itself.
Right and no amateurs in it whatsoever either even if that means walk-overs in the first round ? They haven’t qualified, they shouldn’t be there. BTW, the current main qualifying route isn’t a level playing field. The traditional Q-School being played entirely in the UK, makes it more expensive for non-UK players, with the need for some- maybe most of them – to get visas and other administrative papers as well. In addition the former pros have been largely more successful than the young amateurs at it because they are used to the environment and the conditions. As I said already, It’s not at all a level playing field and IMO it doesn’t bring the best players on tour. I don’t want to name names, but I know one player who is a pro for 12 years, is nearing his 40th birthday, has never been ranked higher than 60th in the world and keeps dropping off and re-qualifying through the Q-School. Do you think that’s good for the sport?
To be honest, no, I wouldn’t have amateurs as top-ups. If the tour were better organised, all pros would enter all tournaments. If they don’t, then yes byes are not that bad. If anyone drops out they sometimes cause walk-overs. The current system is anything but fair and is very UK centric. Even when more and more cards are being given to non UK players, WST continue with their bloody minded attitude. Smaller pro field, proper secondary tour and proper development to professional status is required.
I agree he should not get a card, his “I’m giving it a miss this year” comment is pretty arrogant, as if there were many years ahead of him. I understand those who say he should get anything, given his status, but only if he really does something with it. As of now it has been a “will Hendry play” guesswork and when he did, there was not much delight in it- While he did and does plenty of great things, the sooner his return to playing is forgotten, the better for everyone.
I’ve always maintained the Stephen Hendry ‘comeback’ was more about promotion (for WST and himself) rather than anything to do with performances on the snooker table. Now that he has acheived astrong online presence (with the podcasts) and is a familiar pundit and commentator, it’s hardly necessary for him to continue playing. He’s regularly withdrawn from events because of ‘media commitments’, which clearly shows where his priorities lie. What was unappealing, was the way in which Barry Hearn apparently offered him a tour-card on the golf course. There should have been much more of a discussion within the organisation – this just smacks of favouritism and opportunism. I do suspect that he will indeed be offered a new tour card, because I’m afraid that people in snooker are backward-looking rather than forward-looking.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
“I don’t want to name names, but I know one player who is a pro for 12 years, is nearing his 40th birthday, has never been ranked higher than 60th in the world and keeps dropping off and re-qualifying through the Q-School. Do you think that’s good for the sport?”
Hey now, Ian Burns has only qualified through Q-School twice. Three other times were through the 1-year ranking list, and once through the European Tour Order of Merit.
Fair comment, and Ian Burns certainly loves his sport despite having only reaped modest success otherwise he wouldn’t put himself through all that. I have only respect for him and other so-called “journeymen”. But my point was that the qualifying routes as they have been for a very long time don’t help to promote young talents and, in the long term, that’s extremely bad for the sport, just as the prevailing “nostalgia” culture” is as-well. The current money list ranking system aims at forcing players to play in about everything and prevents WST to organise “telling” events targeting “specific” populations. An ELO type rating system would allow that. Would allow events to be run in parallel too and would allow properly organised pro-ams to be taken into account, which would no doubts be a boost for the amateur game. It would “blur” the frontier between “amateurs” and “professionals”. But WST almost certainly doesn’t want that because it would weaken their “monopoly”.
Whenever Stephen enters a 128 ranking event, it takes away an opportunity for an amateur top up.
Invitational tour cards should be used in preliminary rounds only. Either against other invitationals or amateur top ups.
That would render them pretty useless Michael. Their “official” purpose is to reward players who have done a lot for the sport (intentionally or not). The other purpose is clearly commercial. They go to players who are going to put bums on seats, or viewers in front of the telly, and that, indirectly is good for the whole tour, and the sport in general. In that respect, Jimmy and Ken clearly fulfil their “duties”. Stephen doesn’t, not at the table anyway. Of course, part of the issue is how much snooker lives on nostalgia. The media, and the BBC in particular, are “guilty” for that. How many more times will we get to watch the final balls of the 1985 final? Nobody under the age of 45 can have actual memories of that match, they would have been at most 6 years old when it happened! When you rationally think about that, it’s nonsense. How can young people relate to that?
I believe the WST should be played as a sport rather than a TV show. There are invitationals, exhibitions etc for that.
But to be treated as a legitimate professional sport it should be just the best players, selected on merit from a level playing field.
No promotions. No gimmicks.
Let the sport speak for itself.
Right and no amateurs in it whatsoever either even if that means walk-overs in the first round ? They haven’t qualified, they shouldn’t be there. BTW, the current main qualifying route isn’t a level playing field. The traditional Q-School being played entirely in the UK, makes it more expensive for non-UK players, with the need for some- maybe most of them – to get visas and other administrative papers as well. In addition the former pros have been largely more successful than the young amateurs at it because they are used to the environment and the conditions. As I said already, It’s not at all a level playing field and IMO it doesn’t bring the best players on tour. I don’t want to name names, but I know one player who is a pro for 12 years, is nearing his 40th birthday, has never been ranked higher than 60th in the world and keeps dropping off and re-qualifying through the Q-School. Do you think that’s good for the sport?
To be honest, no, I wouldn’t have amateurs as top-ups. If the tour were better organised, all pros would enter all tournaments.
If they don’t, then yes byes are not that bad. If anyone drops out they sometimes cause walk-overs.
The current system is anything but fair and is very UK centric. Even when more and more cards are being given to non UK players, WST continue with their bloody minded attitude.
Smaller pro field, proper secondary tour and proper development to professional status is required.
I agree he should not get a card, his “I’m giving it a miss this year” comment is pretty arrogant, as if there were many years ahead of him. I understand those who say he should get anything, given his status, but only if he really does something with it. As of now it has been a “will Hendry play” guesswork and when he did, there was not much delight in it- While he did and does plenty of great things, the sooner his return to playing is forgotten, the better for everyone.
I’ve always maintained the Stephen Hendry ‘comeback’ was more about promotion (for WST and himself) rather than anything to do with performances on the snooker table. Now that he has acheived astrong online presence (with the podcasts) and is a familiar pundit and commentator, it’s hardly necessary for him to continue playing. He’s regularly withdrawn from events because of ‘media commitments’, which clearly shows where his priorities lie. What was unappealing, was the way in which Barry Hearn apparently offered him a tour-card on the golf course. There should have been much more of a discussion within the organisation – this just smacks of favouritism and opportunism. I do suspect that he will indeed be offered a new tour card, because I’m afraid that people in snooker are backward-looking rather than forward-looking.