WST has today published the updated calendar for the 2024/25 season
The provisional WST calendar for the whole of the 2024/25 season is now available.
Please note that the World Grand Prix and World Open will be added to the calendar once dates and venues are confirmed.
The Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters will now start on August 30th (rather than 31st as previously announced) and there will be no qualifying rounds as all 144 players will compete at the venue in Riyadh. Further details on this format will be announced shortly.
The qualifying rounds for the Xi’an Grand Prix, British Open and Wuhan Open will now take place from July 25th to August 3rd in Leicester. The BetVictor English Open updated qualifying dates are September 12th to 14th in Brentwood.
The schedule of held over matches for all events this season is also available.
For all ranking events in China, the held over matches will be the defending champion, World Champion, a promoter pick and local wild cards. The only exception to this is the Xi’an Grand Prix where there is no defending champion as it is a new event, so the held over matches are the world number one, World Champion, promoter pick and local wild cards.
Wild card players from China will be drawn against WST tour players in round one, and not against each other in any pre-qualifier.
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For the updated calendar, schedule of held over matches and the re-ranking points list (seeding cut-off points) click the links below.
PROVISIONAL 2024/25 CALENDAR
HELD OVER MATCHES SCHEDULE
RE-RANKING SCHEDULE
One very important and welcome change in that calendar is that all 144 players involved will be at the main venue in Saudi Arabia. This is how it should be for ALL events played under a flat draw system, no matter where they are played.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Christian: no other venue can have the same set-up as the Crucible, because it wouldn’t be allowed by their own rules. A special exception is made. This year, they changed the seating for the front rows, with a higher barrier. This is nodoubt to make it more difficult for protesters to jump over and pour orange powder on the table. But it makes the front-row seats less attractive.
The ‘cramped’ playing conditions are a real problem now, as in the 1970’s players didn’t have the same technique as many do now. There are many shots that they simply cannot play in their normal way. In the qualifiers, I was watching young Bulscu Revesz – he’s one of the players I will be following this season. He has the potential to be the next Luca Brecel. But he wouldn’t be able play at the Crucible with that technique. Should we tell him now?
We have yet to see what the travel arrangements are for players to play in Riyadh, but of course there will be quite a few amateurs, as well as professionals who wouldn’t be able to afford to travel without expense reimbursement. But this (and the English Open) is the first step in bringing players together. All the other tournaments filter out lower-ranked players into qualifier venues. When you say ‘flat draw’, you actually mean any knockout draws. In fact, the structure is potentially more manageable with tiered draws, as most tournaments have become.
It also means that the 4 women professionals will be welcomed, as well as any local women who are selected as wildcards (I would hope WST have stipulated that the Saudi Women’s Champion will get one).
Why would the Saudi’s want to have all matches played there, when they might have used the qualifier scheme that all other tournaments use? It would have saved them a lot of money and organisation. The only reason would be to treat this as a prototype for a World Championship. An overseas World Championship is problematic as the qualifiers would either have to be played in the same country, or else played much earlier (February) to allow the 16 non-seeded players enough time to arrange travel. The intent it pretty clear to me, and China should take note.
Yes the qualifiers would have to be in the same country as the main event as it SHOULD BE for ALL EVENTS. Right before the event proper. And the tour should have a mainland Europe/Midle East leg, an Asian leg (China, Thailand, Hong Kong for now) and an Ireland/UK leg that would comprise no more than one quarter of all events. Yes that would make a change for UK players being away from home for weeks in a row. For all the others it would be no worse, and probably better than what it is now. If there is ambition for snooker to become truly international, they have to break the UK centric nature of the sport’s organisation. IMO the World Championship should be the ONE event that should travel around the world every year. It’s called WORLD championship, not Sheffield championship. Yes, history and tradition is all well and good but any “organism” that doesn’t evolve, adapt and change with the time is deemed to die.
Crucible championship sounds good too though.
The Crucible isn’t adequate for what is expected for the World Championship of a global sport. It’s too small. too cramped, with inadequate facilities for the players and the media. It would be perfect for the Tour Championship for instance, but not for the World Championship.
Nothing can beat a seat in the first row of the Crucible in terms of viewing experience.
Even that is not true. Yes, you are very close to the table and the players but you can’t see the situation of the balls on the table properly, especially when there is only one table in the arena. You are sat too low for that. Of course you have the screens but that’s not the same thing. The best seats are the ones three or for rows up, just next to the diagonal stairs
I was talking specifically about the front row at the side cushion at the two-table setup. From my understanding you can’t have a better seat than in the middle of that row.
Ok,this is probably the very last thing I will say to this, because I don’t have enough facts. But a genuine question: Wasn’t the fact that it is cramped originally the reason to go there? A lot of people just seem to have made a U-turn on all of the aspect of the atmosphere just for the sake of commercialisation and I don’t like that.
If you look at old archive photos it wasn’t that full. Now when it’s packed the ventilation system isn’t strong enough to keep the room “fresh”. I don’t think that the original reason to go there was it being packed, not in 1977. And I don’t think there was as much additional equipment on the floor then as there is now. When there are two tables in operation, each table has two cameramen with traditional cameras on wheels. At least one cameraman with a handheld camera, one above the scene also, then you have the commentary box, the photographers boot(s), the markers boots. All of that takes space, at the expense of the actual space for the tables and players. … it remains a great venue when there is just one table, not in the early stages.
I meant “cramped”, not “packed”. Like the small size and the steep arrangement of seats and the acustics of a theatre that comes with all of that. I remember reading articles and seeing documentaries about how it was discovered and it was praised as the perfect venue for snooker. I don’t have enough facts about that. I still think the current trend that no other venue, at least I can’t think of one, brings the front row and therefore all the other rows pretty close to the table (probably for security reasons) is awful. But I do understand now that a lot in this discussion is about personal preferences as well and I will leave it there.