In the history of the snooker Professional Tour, many events have appeared, suspended for several years and reopened, the Scottish Open, the German Masters, the European Masters, etc., but there are very few examples of returning to the stage after seventeen years, however, the upcoming new season, the second race, the British Open (British Open), is exactly the case.
The poster above is from the last British Open, and you don't even have to look for the year marked inside, just from the long hair of O'Sullivan and Paul Hunter, you can react at once, this has been a long time ago.
The predecessor of the British Open was founded in 1980, but at first it was not a ranking tournament, nor is it the name it is today, the first three years of this event, including the title sponsor, format, and location have been constantly changing, from the British Gold Cup, yamaha organ cup to the International Masters, so it was carried out for five times, of which Steve Davis alone won three championships, but the winner of the first year of the event belonged to "Hurricane" Higgins.
In 1985, the well-known architectural coatings brand Doroth became a new sponsor, and the competition was officially named the British Open and promoted to an official ranking tournament. South African player Francisco, who defeated Kirk Stevens in the final that year, was successfully crowned, and then Davis, White and Hendry took turns to sit on the throne, and in eight years, the three won twice each.
Time came to 1994, the post-70s players began to officially take over the event, from the beginning of O'Sullivan's victory in 94, it took four years, "75 Three Masters" successfully engraved their names on the championship book. As the best Asian player of the year, Thailand's flag James Wattana, but in this arena for three consecutive times to get runner-up, can be called the British Open Jimmy White.
By the way, the British Open has witnessed 6 times in the history of the 147 full score, and all of them occurred in the decade from 1992 to 2003, of which the 1999 session, Dort and Hendry gave full scores. The tournament seems to be particularly friendly to Scottish players, with Hendry and Higgins also winning four titles and finishing runners-up twice and once, respectively, while Graeme Dort and Maguire have also reached the final.
Of course, in retrospect, not every moment of glory was ecstatic enough. In 2002, Paul Hunter won the championship here, when he was only 24 years old, and his future was promising, but then cancer changed everything, making this crown the last ranking champion of Hunter's career. In 2004, Higgins defeated his compatriot Maguire 9-6 in the final to win the British Open for the fourth time in his career, however, in the next season, the event completely disappeared from the roster of the professional tour.
The British Open, the second ranking match of the new season, with a prize fund of up to £100,000, will be held from 16 August this year in Selby's hometown of Leicester. It is worth noting that World Snooker has just decided that the tournament will pay tribute to the historical tradition of this tournament by re-drawing every round, which means that we will probably usher in the first or second round of the match early, which is of course the most important point of view.
After seventeen years of return, the British Open not only evoked the memories of fans, but also made many late debut players have a strong interest in it, after all, no post-80s player has won the championship, let alone the post-90s and post-00s. At present, many people in the British Brigade in China have chosen to give up the first championship of the new season, but they also said that they would participate in the Competition of the British Open, which not only includes young talents such as Zhou Yuelong, "China's first brother" Ding Junhui, and it is very likely that he will make such arrangements for himself.