Ronnie O’Sullivan gets wish granted by snooker bosses as announcement made

The World Snooker Tour’s latest announcement is likely to be

received very well by Ronnie O’Sullivan.

The World Snooker Tour (WST) has announced that the Xi’an Grand Prix, a new ranking tournament, will make its

debut in August of the following year. Following Ronnie O’Sullivan’s threat to

ponder retirement if he is not permitted to compete in Asia more frequently, this

is the fifth tournament that has been arranged in China.

Xi’an, the capital of central China’s Shaanxi Province, is expected to play host to some of the world’s most

prominent snooker players, including O’Sullivan, who is presently on a break.

The Grand Prix is a part of the 2024–2025 Chinese season schedule, along with the

Shanghai Masters, Wuhan Open, International Championship, and World Open.

A massive £850,000 in total prize money will be up for grabs in this competition;

that amount will rise by an extra £25,000 over the next two years. It exceeds the

£825,000 prize pool of the International Championship, which Zhang Anda won

in November. The winner of this year will take home £177,000.

 

The announcement could be seen as an attempt to make amends with O’Sullivan by the WST following his grievances

about not being allowed to participate in China as much as he would have liked.

O’Sullivan and other prominent UK players

have contracts to compete in

WST events; if they choose to skip them in order to participate in international

exhibitions, they risk facing repercussions.

In addition to adding a fifth event to the WST schedule, this also makes it possible for more exhibition tournaments to be

planned around the Grand Prix. O’Sullivan stands to gain from this, since

he begged in November to compete more frequently in Asia.

“If I can’t go and do what I need to do, which is play

a lot in China, I won’t ever

play again,” O’Sullivan told the BBC. “So, we’re at a kind of crossroads now.

“I simply cannot find enough here in the UK to make up for the work that I have

put in. Why wouldn’t I go there if there was someone who would value and respect me more? It’s similar to being in

a toxic relationship—why would you be in one?

 

“I’d love to be able to just keep playing snooker for

the next five, six, seven, eight

years, but if I’m going to be forced into a situation where that’s not possible, then I’m not going to just accept whatever 132

players do, which is to go and play tournament after tournament, week in, week out.”

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