O’Brien faces some major obstacles to contesting threatened World C’ships
By Stephen Leonard
FERGAL O’Brien can foresee a number of obstacles to the staging of this year’s World Snooker Championships and his own prospects of contesting it.
The global tournament has already been shifted from its original April/May date out to July/August in an effort to see it survive the global Coronavirus pandemic that has already sunk a number of major sports events scheduled for 2020.
Lucan man Fergal O’Brien’s propsects of contesting an already-threatened World Snooker Championship have been severely damaged by the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak
And while O’Brien sees the summer as still a positive time slot for the competition, the Lucan man has serious questions about the viability of such a prospect.
“It’s still a good time because the BBC will be able to give it full coverage and it should get good viewing figures” said the 1999 British Open champion.
“But while they could move the championships back to the summer, whether it goes ahead or not will be out of their [World Snooker’s] hands.
Regarding his own participation, O’Brien said “Even if I can play, will I be able to fly into the UK? And even at that, I’d have to spend two weeks in quarantine before the tournament without any practice.
“So then you’re saying to yourself, will I have to travel there four weeks before the qualifiers so that I have two weeks in quarantine and a couple of weeks to practice before the qualifiers.
“That’s then taking you into June and you don’t know if I could even fly in at that time especially with the UK about two weeks behind us in all of this.
“Then if they move it back even further, they might not be able to get the coverage. Would the BBC be able to set aside 17 days to televise it?
Certainly O’Brien is concerned as to the implications of cancelling the World Championships this year especially given that the other big money tournament, the China Open was also scrapped early on in the year.
“Seasons and careers can change with these two tournaments” the Dubliner pointed out.
“You have 128 on the tour and you’d have about 20 who have earned promotion to the tour.
“Would you just keep everyone who is on the tour now and add those 20 on to it next year. With 148. I know logistically there’s more work involved so they might not opt for that.
“Or could you keep the 128 there now and say to the 20 who have qualified that they’ll be promoted to the tour, not next season, but the season after.
“It would probably mean there would be a bigger cut than normal from the 128 that season, but at least the players would have more time to be able to prepare for it.
“But to say, we’re just scrapping the two big tournaments and not give some players the chance to stay on the tour, it would be very hard. These are just my own ideas.
“I know I’d definitely have to win my first [qualifying] match in the World Championships to really stay on it, probably my second and even third, depending on how other matches go.
“But I want to win all three of my qualifying games and get to the Crucible. That’s always the goal” he said.
And preparation so far has not been ideal with O’Brien saying “I haven’t picked up a cue in seven weeks, but there have been times when I haven’t played for 10-12 weeks depending on the games I had to play.
“I haven’t been able to make it out to my club, Celbridge Snooker Club since lockdown, but now with the raising of the travel distance allowed to 5km it means that I can get out there now and practise on my own because I have keys to the club.”
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