Snooker `Breaks` Into Brazil
World Snooker have announced that they will be taking the sport to a brand new territory next year with the Brazilian Masters.
The tournament was announced today at a press conference at Guanabara in London
With at least $200,000 up for grabs, the invitation event featuring 12 of the top players in the world rankings plus four wild cards will run from September 14 to 17, 2011, at the Transamerica Expo Centre in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo.
Sao Paulo has a population of eleven million and claims to be Brazil’s capital of culture, with its avant-garde centre making it impossible to forget.
Barry Hearn, chairman of World Snooker said: “This is a fantastic announcement for snooker as it will be the first ever professional tournament staged in Brazil. It will be an invitation event in year one but depending on its success we do have plans to make it a full world ranking tournament.
“Brazil is a country with a great love of sport and an incredible sporting heritage. Snooker is very popular there and we want to tap into that support. Breaking into South America is a huge step towards our ambition of making snooker a truly global sport. These are exciting times for us, with this the latest in a series of new tournaments.
“We look forward to working with the promoter in Brazil and building foundations there.”
Pablo Magalhães, Marketing Director of Publikimagem Projects and Marketing, the promoter of the event, said: "We believe that hosting an official event of World Snooker in Brazil will be the beginning of a new era of professional snooker in our country. We are very optimistic about the success of this first international tournament of professional snooker in South America. "
Marcílio Cavalcanti, Chairman of Snooker Brazil Association, added: "The realisation of the Brazil Masters in 2011 is being awaited with great anxiety for more than 20,000 players from Brazil, mainly because we will conduct national qualifying to categorise the two best players for the Brazil Masters. This event will change the concept of professional snooker in our country and in a few years we believe that we will have more Brazilian players in snooker’s world rankings."
Brazil’s top player Igor Figueiredo, who reached the final of the IBSF World Championship last year, is now playing his first season on the professional tour, said: "It's very exciting news that there will be a tournament in Brazil. Snooker is already popular in my homeland but there is potential for it to be much bigger. This event will bring snooker to the Brazilian fans and I know they will respond by welcoming the top players and creating a great atmosphere. Hopefully I can be successful on the main tour and provide an example for more Brazilian players to follow me."
The event will be straight knock-out, on one match table. The first two rounds will be best of seven frames, with the semis and final best of nine.
Pictured (left to right at today’s launch): Mark Selby, Marcílio Cavalcanti, Barry Hearn, Pablo Magalhães and Shaun Murphy.
