Mainland Europe’s biggest ever Q Tour event will take place on 22-25 October at Snooker Arena Germany in Oberhausen with 153 players from 35 countries competing.
The event three entry number is the largest ever for a Q Tour event in mainland Europe and includes a record 33 players from the host nation. The first two Q Tour Europe titles of the campaign were won by England’s Sanderson Lam on home soil and Malta’s Aaron Busuttil in Sofia, Bulgaira.
The top ranked player at the end of the campaign will earn a two-year World Snooker Tour (WST) tour card, while further places will be available at the Q Tour Global Play-Offs where an additional three tour cards will be on offer.
Q Tour Europe is part of WPBSA Q Tour Global, which incorporates regional events held around the world, each offering access to the Q Tour Global Play-Offs at the end of the season.
Thia is an event played in Germany and there are 153 players in the draw. This is a huge number and it does show that there is a real interest in snooker in mainland Europe. The continent deserves more events. The main tour is far too UK centric. One person once challenged me after I said that, arguing that this is right because the majority of the players are from the UK. I challenged them back, suggesting that this “majority” situation was the result of the UK centric organisation of the tour, not the justification for it. I stand by that.
Limit UK events to the “Triple Crown”, replace “Home Nations” with “European Nations”, with just one in the UK, moving through the “nations” every four years, have qualifiers played near the actual venue just before the event proper, instead of in the UK weeks ahead of the said events. Have two of the three “European Q-Schools” played in mainland Europe … and I would bet my house that within 10 years, UK players will be a minority in the draws. That’s how it should be. The governing body call themselves “World Snooker” not “UK and Friends Snooker”. They should live by that name.
