Its good that its been announced earlier. BTW venue is already known as its part of a 3 year deal, timing looks like it will be straight after the 2026 NI Open based on known dates for that event and its inclusion on the schedule: championofchampionssnooker.co.uk/sportsbet-io...

Don’t think so no, but I don’t mind them as they’re a way of differentiating the event from others. They used to have a strict dress code but the shirts less the players sell them as merch, so have marketing value in some way.

While it’s on the WST, it is run and managed by Matchroom Multi Sport, WST has little involvement beyond allowing the event to happen ie sanctioning it for pros to be televised or it would be considered an exhibition with no TV allowed. Ultimately it is Emily Fraser who handles things not WST 👍

Funny part is that this event has nothing to do with WST, and the latter has already introduced shirts in some events already (Shoot Out for example) 😂😂

Possibly: Matchroom should have realised how ridiculous it was to invite O’Sullivan - who had not won any tournaments - and was ineligible to participate [would’ve been different if half the WST events were won by the same people], when there were plenty of other eligible individuals to invite. :/

Really wish the people running the tournament were more organised, there was no need for their unnecessary controversy of including O'Sullivan into the tournament in the first place!

@snookerhq.com @totallysnookered.bsky.social @snookerorg.bsky.social et al..

Yep, someone mentioned to me yesterday the article was a copy/paste of last years’ announcement. I don’t know why someone at Matchroom would copy/paste an old announcement and badge it as a new story, unless it has some merit and wasn’t ready to be published….

The errors under the old Eurosport brand were less obvious and usually got fixed quickly, but pretty sure you're right: huge cost cutting means there's just no QA happening on anything across the board. Ridiculous really.....

TNT are absolutely shit. Every single tournament they've broadcast have errors, many of which are blatantly avoidable. Commentators are fine, but they must cringe so badly at the piss-poor production quality of the channel. And they want fans to pay £31/month for this!!

The way this tournament is panning out, I can see both Si and Xiao reaching the final again lol. The Quarter-Finals will make or break that call tho, as both of them have some strong opposition to reach the other side......

Yep, its unfortunate because he's so brilliant to watch in full flow, but as you say, he fades instantly. At least with Zhao, even if he's not in his full scoring flow, he can still scrap out frames and win them with a relatively decent safety game, but Theppy is just "scoring no safety". :(

Now when is Theppy "actually" going to challenge for a proper ranking title? Ever since the 2019 Shoot Out, he has not reached the business end of tournaments once: maybe this season is going to be the one that changes that stat in a positive way for him, as he really needs the boost imo.

Apparently so! Everyone has known for the last 2-3 years that its just a massive bot farm, but its hilarious how people are just discovering this now, as if its something new that nobody knew about before LOL

Theppy is simply more interested in scoring than playing safety shots. Doesn’t help Murphy just keeps beating him so convincingly lol

Ronnie most likely doesn’t run these accounts himself, but might post directly in some rare cases. More often than not, it will be his management team posting with permission. Sportspeople of a certain level of notability generally tend not to manage their own social media accounts.

It was linked on his official Threads account with his first post, so unless someone hacked his Instagram and made a Threads account using it, I doubt its fake: www.threads.com/@ronnie/post...

He claims to be unwell, but promoter is right: he had time to recover from it. Not a WST event, so can use any pain relief necessary. I am almost certain that Zhao Xintong will be chomping at the bit to do media interviews and exhibitions to promote himself to the fans.