Turkey – A new map in Snooker's global layout

This week's Turkish Masters are being contested in beautiful Antalya, and as a new stop in snooker's globalization, the Turkish Masters have a profound connotation.

Text/David Hendon, Eurosport

For snooker players who are accustomed to seeing the scenery of the Milton Keynes Hotel, coming to southern Turkey, blowing the warm breeze of the Mediterranean Sea and looking out over the stunning coastline in the distance is like a sense of isolation.

The snooker movement was first invented by British officers in India, and then the British mainland occupied an absolute position in the snooker movement, and the early snooker movement was often limited to commonwealth countries. The World Championships were held in Australia in 1970 and 1975, but brightly held in a region with a strong snooker atmosphere.

The first ranking tournament to be held outside the UK was the 1988 Canadian Masters. At that time, there were several good players from Canada on the tour. Later that season, the Tour made a strange decision to host a brand new European Open at a casino in Deauville, France. France is a country without any snooker tradition and the race did not go well.

Almost no one came to watch the game, and there was a game where only four spectators were present. After the opening remarks of the French emcee, a lady stood up and said, "Can you repeat it [in English]?" We are from Portsmouth (UK). ”

Players in vests have been awkwardly recognized more than once as waiters by casino patrons. The European Masters moved to Lyon the following year, where it also failed to develop well. Both competitions were won by John Palot, who also consolidated his leading position in snooker through these two overseas titles.

Despite winning the title twice overseas, Palotte is actually a rather family lover, he only regards overseas travel as a job that has to be done, and he is not interested in tourism. Even in Bangkok, when most of the players are enjoying the local nightlife, Paloth will happily lie in bed and play a game of newspaper crosswords faxed from England with great interest.

Parot's strength was his ability to cope with the stickiness of the table due to humid climates, and he eventually won titles in Dubai, Thailand, China, Monaco, Belgium, Malta and Germany.

After the defeat of the European Masters in Deoville in 1989, Snooker set his sights further afield and brokered an Agreement for the Australian Open. However, when local Australian promoters wrote the place of residence as a bus stop in Melbourne, people began to doubt the reliability of Australia's contracts. At the last minute of the competition, the event was finally held in Hong Kong.

It was Barry Hearn's Matchroom company that allowed snooker to move out of Europe to Asia in the 1980s through pioneering expeditions to foreign regions such as China, Malaysia and Japan.

To persuade WPBSA officials who lacked knowledge of the region, Hearn invited Rex Williams, then chairman of the WPBSA, to visit Asia. Williams was known for his exquisite life, and his dress was always impeccable. While the invited players climbed the Great Wall of China on a particularly hot day, Williams appeared on the scene wearing a brand new cashmere coat. Herne laughed and said that everyone had been informed in advance to climb the Great Wall in casual clothes, but Williams replied: "Honey, this is casual." ”

Eventually, the WPBSA took hold of Hearn's work in opening up new markets and took action on its own, successfully hosting ranking tournaments in the areas that Matchroom had originally explored.

With the successful assistance of Thaiman James Wattana, Thailand has become a popular venue. Due to Ding Junhui's presence and superb popularity, China has also become an important competition market, with as many as five major events held in China every season before the CORONAVIRUS pandemic.

In recent years, Snooker has also hosted events in other European countries and regions such as Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Gibraltar and more. Of course, this list can not be less than Germany, in recent years with the German Masters, Berlin Tempodrom has become one of the most popular venues for snooker sports.

Outside of Europe, Bahrain, India, Brazil and Australia have also hosted competitions, and North America has been used as a potential new growth point in WST's planning.

As a result, players who have lived in The UK for a long time have also become accustomed to shuttling between airport terminals, poor hotel TVs and annoying jet lag.

Graeme Dort staged a realistic version of "Man on the Road" on his journey to the China Open in 2002. His flight from Glasgow to London Heathrow was delayed and he missed his flight to Shanghai. A few hours later, he caught the next flight to China. After an 18-hour flight, Dort arrived in China in the middle of the night exhausted.

Upon arrival, tired Dort went straight to sleep, neither alarm clock woke him up, and he woke up in a hurry 15 minutes before the game began. Hurriedly, Dot jumped out of bed, put on his vest and pants, and without even having time to put on his underwear, ran outside to call a taxi.

The taxi was stuck in traffic, then the driver got lost and went around for a long time, and Dot got out of the car and ran another half a mile to get to the race. He was sentenced to lose two sets for being late and eventually lost the game. Losing the game in this way will definitely make Dort's trip back to England feel more difficult and long.

Also at the Same Year's China Open, 18-year-old Mark Selby wasn't used to traveling long distances abroad, so much so that he got up at one o'clock in the morning, put on his clothes and gear, and tried to arrange a vehicle to take him to the two-o'clock race. Tournament officials had to point out to him that it was one o'clock in the morning, that Selby's match was scheduled for one o'clock in the afternoon, and that there were still a full 12 hours left before the start of the race...

There are even players who have even booked hotels in a country that is completely different from where the event is held. Despite all these and other things, snooker practitioners have the opportunity that many people have not had before, and they can experience the process of travel and the diversity of culture in other countries. It was also through the complicated flight that they brought the snooker movement to a wider audience.

Under Barry Hearn's decade-long management of WST, Snooker Sports operates more professionally than ever before. On today's tour, based on the British mainland, it has spread out to all parts of the world. As some of the tour's recent champions have demonstrated, including Zhao Xintong and Fan Zhengyi (China), Neil Robertson (Australia), Luca Bressell (Belgium) and Hussein Wafi (Iran), snooker has gradually blossomed around the world. Among the younger generation, Thailand's Nusaurut Wangharutai won the Women's World Championship, while the WSF Junior Championship title went to Ukrainian player Anton Kazakov.

The live broadcast and promotion of European sports to Snooker is also indispensable to Snooker's overseas development. Through WST's efforts, almost every competition has a global webcast media providing retransmission signals to the rest of the world.

The Turkish Masters represent a steady move forward for the sport of snooker in a globalized layout. Whether it's a five-year tournament deal, a £100,000 championship prize or an exotic charm, Turkey offers players and fans a richer side of the tour.