Snooker news - Neil Robertson: Public deserves summer World Championship even behind closed doors
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Updated 30/04/2020 at 12:59 GMT
Neil Robertson has backed the decision to hold a summer World Snooker Championship in July because he believes the public deserve to see top quality live sport on TV after the coronavirus lockdown.
Judd Trump chats to Neil Robertson during the German Masters final.
Image credit: Eurosport
2010 world champion and world number two Robertson is in full agreement with World Snooker Tour chairman Barry Hearn, who announced on Wednesday the delayed event at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield will go ahead between Friday July 31 and Sunday August 16.
"We are delighted to confirm new dates for this huge global sporting event which has an international television audience of 500 million people," said Hearn.
"The world is going through a very challenging period but live sport can be a massive inspiration for the public and can boost morale. This gives fans of top class sport something on their calendar to look ahead to and enjoy for 17 days."
WST will respond to the latest government advice on the coronavirus pandemic, and have also said that there are three alternatives if fans are not permitted to attend the tournament that was postponed from its original start date of Saturday April 18: "Playing the event with a reduced crowd. Playing the event behind closed doors. Postponing the event to a later date again."
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The sporting calendar has been decimated by the health crisis with the Olympic Games and Euro 2020 the most high-profile casualties.
Robertson feels that even if the tournament is forced to be played behind closed doors due to ongoing health concerns, it would be a better outcome than having no event or no plan for when the 44th staging of the sport's biggest event in Sheffield will be played.
“I think they will probably be looking at behind closed doors because it will be hard to sell tickets if they don’t really know,” Robertson told Eurosport.
Nothing is a given of course. A lot can change in the next three months, but let’s hope the virus will well be on its way out by then especially with summer coming along.
“That’s usually when bugs or viruses tend to dissipate so hopefully we’ll be back to some sort of normality to stage the event.
“It’s better to be played behind closed doors than nothing because people will be craving and missing live sport by then and they deserve it.
“If it is behind closed doors, so be it. It won’t be the same, but we have to remind ourselves it is the World Championship.
It might suit players who don’t fancy the job in front of big crowds. It is what it is. I’ll try to enjoy it as much as I can because people need something new to watch, some nice positive content rather than only the 5pm news update.
Robertson and five-times world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan are 9/2 joint-second favourites to win the world title behind 5/2 favourite and world number one Judd Trump, who lifted his first world title with a fabulous 18-9 win over John Higgins a year ago.
The tournament will revert to its traditional format with the world's top 16 and 16 qualifiers competing over the 17-day competition.
Australia's leading player - who has already lifted the Champion of Champions, World Grand Prix and European Masters this season - feels that no fans inside the Crucible could benefit some players, but would not be a problem for the sport's leading players.
"Myself, Judd and Ronnie are used to playing the odd big match in front of hardly any crowd," said Robertson, winner of the Masters in 2012 and UK titles in 2013 and 2015. "Same with a lot of the other top players.
“So we’ll be able to handle it no problem, and some of the lower ranked guys will maybe fancy the job more without no crowd to put too much pressure on them.
It will be interesting to see how it works for Ronnie because he usually has 95 percent of the crowd behind him. I don’t how the dynamics of that will work out because there is perhaps more pressure on him to entertain. Maybe he will play freely without any strain. It will be interesting to see how he handles it.
“Sometimes in China, we play in front of restricted crowds because the tickets there are so expensive.
“They might have to reduce the capacity, but it’s a tricky one. I usually rent an apartment in Sheffield, but I won’t be able to do that at the moment.
“There’s also the qualifiers to figure out. There are obviously some of the Chinese players having to return to the UK, but these are all issues that will need to be addressed.
“I wouldn’t like to be having to sort all this out, but at least we have a date to work towards. That is better than having no date, and three months is a long time away."
Desmond Kane
With the World Championships falling victim to coronavirus, Eurosport has , including a new vodcast, which airs every day at 2pm on Eurosport 1. Snooker fans will also be able to enjoy all nine episodes in full in audio form on a new podcast, The Break.
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