Qualifying Stages Need More Attention

OK, so a couple of minutes ago Jimmy White lost to Michael Holt 5-3 (He led 3-0). But it ended a superb run of 8 consecutive wins at Pontins.

Unfortunately, many Snooker fans do not know where the Whirlwind is these days. The Qualifiers are hardly coveraged, and most people do not care.

Jimmy has been doing this for quite a while now, but for people like Ken Doherty and Mark Williams, it'll be tough trying to get back.

Ken did lead 4-2 against Ronnie in Northern Ireland and seemed to be playing well until he fell away, but then defeat to Jimmy for a place in Shanghai reminded him of the harsh reality of playing Qualifiers.

The Qualifiers also have many young players and possible top players in them. Judd Trump seems to be winning regularly and Liang Wenbo seems to thump everyone.

However, the only way to (sort-of) watch them is to go to Pontins or watch live scoring on the World Snooker website, which I tell you, is not fun.

I know the point of Qualifying is to get through to the ''Televised'' stages of a tournament, but wouldn't it be nice to have a little camera installed next to every table so we could watch it on the web or somewhere?

At least it would give some more respect to Jimmy, Judd and all the others.