Cueing up an exciting future

Under a joint effort between the WPBSA, the Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association and Xingpai, China now hosts four of the 19 ranking events and two invitational tournaments on the World Snooker Tour. Among the 128 players on the tour, 24 are from the Chinese mainland, the second highest representation behind England (55).

At grassroots level, snooker and pool enjoy mass popularity, with big cities brimming with billiards clubs and smaller cities even featuring outdoor pool tables.

According to the CBSA, China has around 60 million snooker amateurs, among which 25 million play regularly.

Ferguson, a former pro player from Nottinghamshire, England, revealed the WPBSA is not planning to bring any more tour events to China for the time being but wants to help expand the nation's domestic circuit and talent cultivation system as a priority.

"It's about sustainable development and producing quality," said the 49-year-old. "If we start putting on smaller events everywhere it will obviously dilute the quality and the resources－this is a concern.

"What we need to do is to get the second tier－the CBSA tour－to travel around the country to deliver the opportunity to find talent to feed the world tour."