World Snooker recently announced that the Kingdom of Bahrain would play host to a world ranking event in the sport of snooker. This is the first time ever a world ranking event has been held in Bahrain. Bahrain is located in the Middle East, east of Saudi Arabia, on an archipelago in the Persian Gulf.

The event will be called The World Snooker Bahrain Championship and will take place at the Bahrain International Exhibition Centre Manama. The current dates for the event are November 8th to the 15th. The event is supported by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

The top sixteen players in the world will be automatically entered into the tournament and will compete against sixteen qualifiers and six local wild card players. One former World Champion of Snooker, Peter Ebdon, has stated that the new tournament is “tremendous news for snooker” and that the new tournament is a “great boost for players”. Ebdon also stated that he has seen firsthand that snooker is very popular in the Middle East and the fans in the region will support the event.

The Chairman of the WPBSA and World Snooker, Sir Rodney Walker, had this to say on the new tournament: "This is a major step in our strategy to make professional snooker a global sport. We are moving into a territory which we know has a huge following for snooker; this tournament will be a focal point for that interest as well as a catalyst for further growth across the Middle East.

"We already have two fully-funded ranking tournaments in China and we have had considerable commercial success in the Far East in recent years. With this venture into Bahrain we intend to continue to exploit the potential of markets where snooker is popular, and to provide great entertainment to an ever-growing international fan base."


- 2008-08-18