Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Q Tour
Snooker tournament From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
The Q Tour, officially the WPBSA Q Tour, is a second-tier series of snooker tournaments immediately below the level of the World Snooker Tour, consisting of amateur and ex-professional players to compete for qualifying places to the main tour. It is organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA).
The tour originally ran from the 1994–95 season as professional non-ranking events. Due to the large numbers of players on tour at that time, the new WPBSA Minor Tour was formed so players lower down the rankings had tournaments to play in. Being subsequently rebranded the UK Tour and then the Challenge Tour,[1] The WPBSA operated the three-level circuit until the end of the 2002–03 season when it split with the amateur governing body and professional players were no longer eligible to enter through the third-tier International Open Series.[2] The Challenge Tour was axed upon completion of the 2004–05 season.
It was revived for the 2018–19 season as a multi-regional development tour and was rebranded as the Q Tour from the 2021–22 season.[3][4]
Remove ads
History
Summarize
Perspective
Early editions
The concept of a secondary professional tour was first experimented with in the 1994–95 season in the form of the WPBSA Minor Tour to provide competition for lower ranked professionals, but only ran for a season.[5] A two-tiered tour structure was formally adopted from the 1997–98 season due to over-subscription of the Main Tour, where all professionals can compete in the UK Tour and the best performers could earn promotion.[1] From the 1999–2000 season, entry was limited to players not competing on the Main Tour[1] and exclusive membership was implemented from the 2001–02 season.[6] From the 2000–01 season it was rebranded the Challenge Tour.[5]
In its first season there were five events, but the number was reduced to four in the following seasons.[5] There were two official maximum breaks at the UK Tour, both in the 1998–99 season; the first was made by Stuart Bingham against Barry Hawkins in Event 3, and the second by Nick Dyson against Adrian Gunnell in Event 4.[1]
Pro-am replacement
The Pro Challenge Series was introduced for the 2009–10 season, all tour players being eligible to play.[7] Only four of the planned seven events were played before the series was axed due to low player participation.[8] The following 2010–11 season saw the Pro Challenge Series replaced by the Players Tour Championship, a series of minor-ranking tournaments that were open to the entire professional membership with an amateur leg, effectively making it an open tour.[9] They also counted towards the rankings for professionals on the Main Tour,[10] and any player who finished in the top 8 of the PTC Order of Merit was guaranteed a tour card for the following season.
Return to amateur-only event and expansion
The Challenge Tour in its initial format was revived in the 2018–19 season, consisting of ten events each played by only amateur players over one or two days; 72 players (top 64 of the Q School Order of Merit, plus eight wildcards) were fielded and there was prize money. The top two players from the Challenge Tour Order of Merit received a main tour invitation card for the following season.[3]
From the 2020–21 season, the Challenge Tour was rebranded as the Q Tour (retrospectively known as Q Tour Europe).[4][11] It was expanded to other regions in the form of Q Tour Global from the 2023–24 season.
Remove ads
Format
Q Tour events are generally played over three days with the first day being an open qualifying day.
In a Q Tour Europe event, the main draw starts on the second day when the 16 open qualifiers are joined by the 48 seeded players to form a 64-player knockout competition. It consists of the top 32 eligible players from the Q School Order of Merit, another top eight junior players who are not already qualified, and the last eight places from the Asia-Oceania version of Q School.[12] In other regional events, entrants are largely local players and do not involve seedings.
Remove ads
Event finals
Summarize
Perspective
Remove ads
Order of Merit winners
Remove ads
See Also
References
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads