Premier League Line-Up Announced
MATCHROOM Sport have announced the full line up in this year’s PartyPoker.com Premier League Snooker.
The event, which has become a permanent fixture on the snooker calendar will start on Thursday, September 3, culminating with the play-offs on the 28th and 29th November.
The league, televised by Sky Sports features seven of the finest players in the sport, and leading the way is defending champion and World No.1 Ronnie O’Sullivan.
The Essex-based ‘Rocket’ will be attempting to lift the league title for an astonishing sixth consecutive season and ninth time overall, after beating Mark Selby 7-2 in last year’s final, John Higgins 7-4 in 2007 and Jimmy White 7-0 in 2006.
World Champion Higgins will be returning to Premier League action in an attempt to halt O’Sullivan’s dominance and will be joined by UK Champion and World Championship runner-up Shaun Murphy.
Higgins, 35, was a winner of the Premier League ten years ago when he beat Jimmy White in Maidenhead and will be looking to have a good run after failing to qualify for the play-offs in 2008.
Murphy, making only his second appearance in the event, will fancy his chances following a massive return to form over the past 12 months.
2003 champion, Marco Fu returns and is joined by a second overseas player in Australia’s Neil Robertson, who will be looking to improve on his only other Premier League outing in 2007
'Legend’ is a term often over-used in sport, but it is hard to think of any other word when describing seven-time World Champion Stephen Hendry.
The 40-year-old Scot is still a very dangerous competitor. He last won the League in 2004 but that will mean nothing when the action gets underway.
The seventh-man is Bristol teenager Judd Trump. The world No.30 earned his spot by winning the Championship League arlier this year. Hailed as one of snooker’s greatest ever prospects, Trump now gets his chance to see what he can do among the game’s elite.
Matchroom Sport Chairman Barry Hearn said: "I think this is a very exciting line-up with a diverse selection of top players competing.
“Of course, Ronnie will always be the man to beat in this event, but I feel any one of the others has a chance of winning this title come the end of November.
“Some of the players have struggled with the 25-second shot-clock but coping with that has always been one of O’Sullivan’s many strengths.
“The standard is high and I am looking forward to 12 nights of top class snooker in September, October and November this year.”
Now entering its 24th season, the PartyPoker.com Premier League Snooker is the world’s only major snooker tournament played to a league format. The field consists of seven of the very best players in the world and each player plays the others once over the best of six frames, making a total of 21 matches.
There are two points available for a win and a point for a 3 – 3 draw and following the round robin section of play, the top four players moved forward to the big money play-offs in December.
The total prize fund is in excess of £200,000, and the money for the round-robin section will be dished out on a ‘frames won’ basis with £1,000 awarded for each frame. In addition, there is a ‘Double Your Money’ bonus for a break of 100 or over of another £1,000.
Successful players carry forward their bonuses to the play-offs where the serious money is up for grabs. The £1,000 for a century bonus stays and the champion receives £30,000, the runner-up takes home an additional £15,000 and the beaten semi-finalists make an extra £5,000 each. The semi-finals are the best of 11 frames and the final is over 13 frames.
The event will be broadcast for over 48 hours LIVE coverage on Sky Sports in the UK and Matchroom Sport Television will produce 24x2 hour highlight programmes syndicated globally.
The Full Line-Up (with world rankings)
Ronnie O’Sullivan - No.1
Shaun Murphy - No.3
John Higgins - No.4
Marco Fu - No.8
Neil Robertson - No.9
Stephen Hendry - No.10
Judd Trump - No.30.
