World Snooker today announced a new three year agreement to hold the Wuxi Classic in Jiangsu Province, China.
The event will take place in Wuxi, the home of Chinese Snooker Super-Star Ding Junhui, on 2nd – 6th June 2010 and will be the first event to take place at the stunning new venue which is being built just for Snooker.
This year’s event is an invitational tournament; however, the parties have agreed to explore opening the tournament up to all 96 professional players and assigning ranking points in years 2 and 3.
The 12 man field for the 2010 Wuxi Classic will see defending champion Mark Allen take on the likes of Ali Carter, Ryan Day, Marco Fu, Mark Selby, Ding Junhui, Shaun Murphy and seven-time World Champion Stephen Hendry plus 4 local wildcards.
Commenting on the new agreement Ding Junhui said, “It’s a good tournament in the summer and every year I’ve done well. It is good for the people to watch top snooker and Wuxi is my home town. I like playing in front of my home fans.”
Barry Hearn, Chairman of the WPBSA stated: “This new agreement demonstrates both snooker’s growing popularity in China and their desire for more professional World Snooker tournaments. China is a key market for World Snooker and it is important that we continue to work with our partners to nurture snooker’s growth for the benefit of our new fans and all the World Snooker players.”