Monday 24 March 2014

Players Championship Grand Finals Preview

After a short weeks rest following the World Open,the games top players are in action again tomorrow with The Players Championship Grand Finals starting a busy period leading up to the big one in the Crucible the middle of next month.

This event,now in its fourth year,has on all previous occasions been held in Ireland with great success,but this year the decision was made,much to the disappointment of the Irish snooker public,to switch the event to Thailand.The idea I suppose was that,coming as it does between the World Open & China Open, having it out there would cut down on travelling for the players involved,but whatever the thinking it completely backfired as civil unrest in Thailand meant a quick rethink was required and event was switched back to the UK.

The one positive thing to come out of this debacle is that the venue finally chosen is one with a rich history within the game and all snooker fans of a certain vintage will have nothing but fond memories of battles past at  The Preston Guild Hall.

This tournament of course is the culmination of a season of PTC events in The UK,Europe & China and the 32 men playing here this week have been decided by an order of merit. I'm not going to go into a match by match preview,but the one match that stands out is the first round clash between recent World Open winner Shaun Murphy & century man Neil Robertson,

Of course the other big names are also here and none come bigger than Ronnie O'Sullivan,who ironically is unlikely to have played if this event had stayed in Thailand.

The action gets under way tomorrow afternoon and can be followed for the week on Eurosport.

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