Sports

Snooker regaining popularity ‘through social media and YouTube’

A snooker tournament in honour of a Tasmanian legend attracted a strong field last week, as the sport enjoys a resurgence of popularity around Australia and the world.

The inaugural Ron Atkins Classic snooker championship lured 76 of Australia's best snooker players to Launceston to compete for $12,000 in prize money and points that count towards national rankings.

Tournament director Paul Cosgriff said it was the biggest-ever field to enter a snooker tournament in Tasmania.

"We think it's because of the fact that it is the Ron Atkins Classic," he said.

Tournament director Paul Cosgriff

"Ron was a legend of our game, and therefore there are people who have come from interstate."

Atkins is regarded as Tasmania's best-ever snooker player and amassed a formidable list of titles during his career, culminating in three Australian Amateur Snooker Championships and 15 Tasmanian championships.

Atkins, who was also runner up in the 1980 World Amateur Snooker Championship in 1980, died in August 2017, aged 80.

Leanne Atkins, Ron Atkins widow, helped organise the snooker tournament in her late husband's name.

His widow, Leanne Atkins, helped organise the Roy Atkins Classic and said her husband would have been moved by the level of entries.

"I think he would have been very proud and very humbled by it," she said.

"Every player that's participating in this tournament had met Ron, or knew of him through family connections."

Steve Mifsud at the snooker championships in Launceston May 2018

Victorian snooker player Steve Mifsud made it to the final of the inaugural championship, but conceded the title to West Australian Matthew Bolton who came back from trailing 1-4 to win five games to four late on Sunday night.

Mifsud said he was one of many players Atkins mentored.

"I knew Ron since I first picked up a cue, he was around and he was giving me advice and that, so he was a great support to me in my career," he said.

"So when I heard that this tournament was being put on in his honour, I was always going to come and play my best here."

Snooker finds new audiences, players through social media

Snooker's heyday in Australia was in the 1970s and 80s, when tournaments were regularly televised.

Its popularity waned when its major sponsors — tobacco companies — were banned from advertising and free-to-air networks stopped showing tournaments.

Ron Atkins at the 1980 world snooker championships.

Mr Cosgriff said new participants were joining now that they could watch tournaments online and through social media and YouTube.

"That's making a big difference, it means that the people here in Australia are having more opportunities to see it, and there's a great deal more interest in it as a result," he said.

Mr Cosgriff said Australian Neil Robertson's 2010 World Championship victory and the staging of World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association tournaments in Victoria between 2011 and 2015 also inspired new players.

Three-time World Billiards Champion Robby Foldvari remembered when British snooker shows like Pot Black rated highly on Australian TV in the 1970s and hoped the sport could return to free-to-air networks.

"More people played then because they saw it [on TV]", he said.

"So yeah, TV exposure is the ultimate thing that we need."

Trophies on offer for the Ron Atkins Classic snooker championship

Mifsud said while the United Kingdom remained the centre of professional snooker, the sport was enjoying huge growth in China.

"There's a lot of Chinese players coming through, I think there's 128 professionals, and about 25 of them are Chinese," he said.

"They've got a lot of good coaches, a lot of academies and they're producing many, many good players. So that's the future of the game."

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