Cav's Place

I did raise an eyebrow as soon as I saw that this week’s snooker tournament takes place in Wuhan, but I remembered that there had recently been another one in China and I didn’t know whether any had taken place there last year, so it was only today, when I happened to hear that this is the first edition of the Wuhan Open and it’s the first ranking event taking place in China since 2019, since the Shanghai Masters was a non-ranking event, that it struck me how fitting this is. Admittedly, I didn’t really look into it, but a quick search indicates that my impression is correct and the popularity of snooker has indeed been increasing in recent years, and I do believe that the fact that it took one of the shortest breaks caused by the lockdowns has a lot to do with that. I’m quite sure that it was the first live sport to return on Eurosport, so many other people, at least in Europe, probably ended up doing the same thing I did, watching it because it was the only option, ending up getting at least somewhat interested in it as a result and then continuing to watch, at least occasionally, even after everything else returned as well.
Sure, it’s far from one of the most popular sports in the world, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’d end up in a position that might allow it to challenge the top ten, nor if the Chinese authorities chose to do things like this in order to send a message that China is once again open and safe, nor if some part of the reason why World Snooker and WPBSA gave their seal of approval to the idea was the knowledge that the sport ended up being one of the “winners” of the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, the thought of any conspiracies or the use of strong-arm tactics is completely ridiculous, though people tend to latch on to them so quickly that I find myself needing to specify that I’m not referring to anything of the sort, and this perspective might not have even been explicitly mentioned in any official discussions, but I’m just saying that the thought was probably at least at the back of the minds of those involved. And, even if it wasn’t, that it remains a rather uncomfortably fitting choice…