In the 2021/22 season, the World Snooker Tour officially released new rules for punishing passive games that deliberately consume time. However, after a season has been declared over, the new rules of the World Snooker Tour have not had any impact. The grinding style of play represented by Selby, Yan Bingtao, O'Donnell and Hu gill is still successful in the tour, and it is not affected by the new rules at all. The reason for this situation, the former Murphy has given a specific answer, that is, the new rules after the innovation do not give detailed standards and are not enforceable.
The World Federation of Taiwan Compatriots issued new rules to crack down on deliberately time-consuming
During the 2021 World Championships, Selby was controversial for his grinding style of play. Subsequently, the World Snooker Tour issued new rules to combat deliberately time-consuming negative play. The new rules read as follows: If a player engages in deliberately time-consuming behavior during a match, the referee will have the right to warn the player and inform him of the possible effects. If, after being warned, the player continues to act deliberately and time-consuming, the referee will have the right to impose a penalty of a negative set on the player. If, after being punished, the player still has similar violations, then the referee will have the right to continue to execute the decision to lose one set, and so on, until the offending player loses the game.
The snooker reforms have failed utterly
Judging by the performance of players in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons, the average time of the players has not been affected in any way, and the deliberate time-consuming behavior has not suffered any blows. Whether it's Selby, O'Donnell, Yan Bingtao or Hurgil, Selby's performance in the 2021/22 season has even changed, and Hurby, O'Donnell and Yan Bingtao's grinding style of play seems to be more intense than before. In particular, O'Donnell and Hugel, two players, set a record for the slowest average shot in the 2021/22 season, and Hu Jill even broke the embarrassing performances of Selby and Yan Bingtao with an average of 32.91 seconds. In such circumstances, it is easy to see that the DF's decision to combat deliberately time-consuming negative matches has failed utterly. Because their reforms did not change any of the pattern of snooker, and at the same time, the new rules did not fundamentally improve snooker's speed and ornamentation.
Unworkable reforms are doomed to failure
In fact, shortly after the DFW issued the new rules, Murphy questioned snooker's new rules. Murphy once said: "In fact, snooker's new rules against deliberately time-consuming negative matches are not feasible, because there are no detailed implementation standards." In fact, the new regulations only give the power to judge, but there is obvious controversy as to how long it will be and how to enforce the penalty. Moreover, if the referee is not careful, there may be a double standard situation. For example, the referee may enforce two sets of standards for fast-paced players and slow-paced players, in which case it is likely to cause the fast-paced players to be injured twice. So I'm not optimistic about such a new rule because it doesn't have a standard for enforceability. If not corrected, then this rule is doomed to failure. However, Murphy's doubts have not yet passed a year before the new rule has failed. Because at most in the past year, only players have been warned, no players have been punished, and the World Snooker Tour has not added to the new rules, so this is doomed to failure.