Hong Kong to host snooker ranking tournament in March, its first in 35 years
Six-day event featuring 32 of the world’s leading players expected to take place at new 10,000-seat Kai Tak Arena
Hong Kong will host its first snooker ranking tournament in over three decades next March, after the professional circuit’s chiefs moved the World Grand Prix to the city from the UK.
The six-day tournament is expected to be held at the new Kai Tak Arena, which will offer a seating capacity of up to 10,000, and sources confirmed to the Post that World Snooker Tour (WST) officials were in town last week for a site visit.
Established in 2015 before being upgraded to a ranking tournament a year later, the World Grand Prix will make its Hong Kong debut from March 4 to 9 as the sport continues to expand its reach. There will be total prize money of about HK$7.1 million (US$914,000).
“It’s an elite ranking tournament limited to the top 32 players, there will be no qualifiers,” Vincent Law Wing-chung, chairman of the Hong Kong Billiard Sports Control Council, said.
“A normal ranking tournament with 64 players could be too much for us, and WST wasn’t fond of those invitational tournaments [that Hong Kong staged before] because there were too few players involved.
