India Open Venue Announced
from worldsnooker.com
The Grand Hyatt
Hotel in Mumbai will stage the Indian Open world ranking event in
October.
The venue was
announced at a press conference in Mumbai on Thursday, attended by
WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson and Billiards and Snooker Federation
of India President Capt PVK Mohan. The broadcast partner will be
NDTV Network who will televise matches live on all days.
The inaugural
Indian Open was staged in New Delhi last year and now moves to
Mumbai, the country's biggest city. The £300,00 tournament will run
from October 13-17. The qualifying rounds are in Barnsley from
September 18-21 with the 64 winners to progress to the final stages,
joined by six Indian wild cards.
Ding Junhui won the
tournament last year, winning the final against Mumbai-born Aditya
Mehta, who became the first Indian player to progress beyond the
quarter-finals of a ranking event.
Capt PVK Mohan
said: "Last year's tournament made a huge
impact and with continued guidance from World Snooker this can
emerge as one of the circuit's showpiece events."
Jason Ferguson
said: "Mumbai is a vibrant and wonderful
location for the tournament and a chance for us to experience more
of Incredible India. Our greatest ambition is for snooker to become
a truly global sport, and India is such an integral part of this
aspiration."
"I would like to give particular thanks to
Capt Mohan and his dedicated team at the BSFI. They have worked
incredibly hard to make the dream of the Indian Open world ranking
event into reality. We are delighted to be working alongside them
again on the event this year. We have made firm friendships and we
hope to be back in India for many years to come."
"Last year's inaugural Indian Open was a great
success and it was a hugely significant moment in snooker history,
to stage a tournament in the country where the sport was invented in
1875."
Indian cue king Pankaj Advani also attended the press conference and
said: "It's a best-of-seven frame format which
throws it wide open. Anyone can win on his day."
Mumbai ::
21
August 2014
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