ARE SHORT MATCHES BECOMING A PATTERN IN SNOOKER?

Snooker has changed it's calendar structure a lot, mainly in these last 10 years. Right now, the snooker Shoot-Out is being played for a tenth year - it's a completely different format of snooker, and an unique format of play that allows a player to bank £ 50k and claim a ranking title in under 70 minutes work.

Like it or not, we won't debate that here. But, is the length of snooker matches getting shorter? Should the traditionalists, like me, be worried?

Well, first we have to know that these Championship Leagues - and alikes - are a massive help to help snooker keep going during the pandemic (because it involves all the 128 players playing in separate blocks of days, helping the bubble logistics) and to help the lower ranked players to get their money. 2020 and 2021 can't be taken as example.

Overall, snooker matches are getting longer and not shorter, and here's why: when most snooker tournaments had long matches, the sport only had about 7 tournaments in the calendar. Then, around 2011, the PTCs, ET's and AT's came along with best of 7's from start to finish. That allowed snooker to be on TV weekly in those Friday-to-Sunday events.

Then, a few years back when snooker was already established on TV again, the PTC's ended. Most of them kept on tour as full ranking tournaments. However, apart from one or two exceptions, these events became week-long tournaments, with finals being a two-session match and semis and quarters usually increasing their lenght too. Most Sundays will have a two-session final available on TV for snooker fans these days.

And to come with that, newly launched events are entering the tour adpated to the long format. Examples are the Tour Championship and the China Championship. Plus the China Open which had its final extended to 21 frames.

Although this season is an "exception to the rule", as the Chinese events were cancelled and the whole tour had to be restructured, it's clear that the shortened matches came to get snooker back on TV, but now that people got involved again, they want longer matches and WST is delivering it.

Of course a lot of people - including me - get frustrated that the UK Championship semifinals were reduced to 11 frames, that tournaments like the Shoot-Out and the new "WST Pro Series" are worth ranking points, but overall I don't think the sport is heading to this direction. We can treat them simply as "interesting" different format events in the calendar and get on with it. Does the ranking points take the fun out of them? Probably, but I suppose we can welcome changes instead of being afraid that they will ruin the sport we love.

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