It might be amongst the strangest sporting set-ups you will ever see, but it is fair to say that the start of the 2020/21 World Snooker Tour season will be welcomed by all.
The date is 13 September 2020 and the venue is Stadium MK, Milton Keynes for the Matchroom Championship League sponsored by BetVictor.
There are no spectators, again, but you will at least be able to watch via Matchroom Live and popular betting sites.
If you are a fan of snooker betting online and fancy a flutter on this event, why not check out the snooker betting odds for this event
There are a few new, and noticeably young, faces for the tour this year. This includes Iulian Boiko who doesn’t play in this event until October 5th when he faces the current world champion, Ronnie O’Sullivan.
But before that, on September 21st he faces world number 1 Judd Trump in the European Masters. Iulian then turns 15 the day after, believe it or not.
Who will cope best with the conditions?
This is a topsy-turvy start to the season with all the first events being played at the Milton Keynes venue for COVID safety reasons of course. And it remains to be seen as to who handles themselves the better in this situation.
For the youngsters, and all the new pros for that matter, it will probably be a blessing in disguise as there will not be the intimidation of the crowd to contend with. I am sure they will have enough going on as they try to cope with the nerves and excitement of playing as a profession snooker player at last.
Some will still, no doubt be pinching themselves and saying “I am a professional snooker player” to themselves in an attempt to be convinced!
For the fans, although getting the players back into action is obviously welcome, there is the frustration of not being able to get to the venue to cheer on their heroes.
TV or not TV?
TV coverage of snooker is somewhat hard to follow and not always given a very high priority. The BBC are notorious for switching coverage to “the red button” at crucial moments in a match. That’s when they do actually cover anything. They are limited to the World Championship, the UK Championship and the Masters at the moment.
Eurosport do much better and, with their Eurosport Player, cover most events (presumably, contractual restrictions prevent them showing some events covered by the ITV network).
But at least snooker is back with us again and no doubt snooker fans across the world will be glued to their chosen media to follow the progress of each event. Even if we aren’t always quite sure of exactly what stage they are at!
