At first, the professional championship was held in Birmingham, England. 1982. There is no sponsor at all, and the TV station is not interested in broadcasting. That year, Ray Reaton, a six-time world champion, defeated jimmy white in the final and won the last major event in his life. The first prize is only 5000 pounds. The following year, the competition was moved to Preston, and the qualifier was held for the first time. The top 32 players in the world were listed as seed players. However, only four of the 65,438+06 players made it to the quarter-finals. In the end, Tony North beat joe johnson to win the championship, and North won the first prize of12,500.
Due to the success of two consecutive events, tobacco manufacturer Rothmans immediately expressed his willingness to sponsor the event, and BBC TV decided to broadcast the event of 1984. Since then, the event has been crowned as a sponsor's signboard, and it has been renamed as the Rothman Grand Prix. The venue has been moved to Reading again, and the prize money has also risen sharply to 45,000 pounds. From 1984 to 1992, the first prize is increased by 5,000 pounds every year. The final of the first Rothman Grand Prix was full of passion. Dennis taylor, a native of Northern Ireland, has changed careers for many years and has never won a grand prix. That year, he suffered from the loss of his mother, and his grief made him almost give up snooker. But he beat Cliff Thoburn here, won the first grand prix in his career, and made unremitting efforts to win the world championship the following year.
1986, this competition has set a record that I'm afraid there are no latecomers. Rex Williams, born in 1933, changed careers in 195 1 and became the oldest finalist in the history of professional snooker (53 years old), but lost to jimmy white who was full of youthful ambitions. The next five championships were arranged by two legendary players, Steve Davis OBE and Stephen Hendry. 1992, jimmy white beat Ken Docherty for the second time, and he won the first prize of 80,000 pounds that year. 200 1, LG electronics began to sponsor the event. During the three years sponsored by LG, Stephen Lee, Chris Small and mark williams won the championship respectively. In 2004, the new sponsor added a new name to the event, named totesport Grand Prix. The competition is now held in Preston Hull Guild in about 10, which is just the beginning of the snooker season. In the 2005 Grand Prix, Higgins not only won the championship by defeating O 'Sullivan 9-2 in the final, but also set three professional snooker records, which deeply engraved this game in the history of snooker.
However, Totesport only sponsored the event for two years. In 2006, Royal London Watch began to take over the Grand Prix. Since 2006, the competition system and points system of the Grand Prix have changed greatly, from the original single-loss elimination system to the three-stage system. Among them, the first stage is a group round robin in which 64 professional players other than the top 32 participate, the second stage is the first stage 16 qualifiers and the top 32 players * * *, and the 16 players who win the second stage enter the third stage of the single defeat knockout.
In 2006, this competition system was introduced for the first time. At that time, graeme dott, the world champion, Ding Junhui, the champion of the British Championship, and mark williams, the left-handed Welsh gold medalist, and other players who were good at long-term competitions were quite resistant to this competition system. However, it is this competition system that has created Australian genius Neil Robertson and Englishman Jamie Copp. Neil won the first professional championship in his career, and Kopp got the first full score 1.47, and reached the professional finals for the first time.
The 2007 Snooker Grand Prix will be held in Aberdeen Convention and Exhibition Center, Scotland from June 65438+ 10/3 to June 2 1 day. In the end, China Hong Kong player Fu Jiajun defeated O 'Sullivan in the final and won the first ranking championship in his career. China's Liu Song also entered the quarter-finals, creating Chinese mainland's best performance in this competition. The new competition system implemented in 2008 is that the players who enter the main competition will be eliminated in a single round with two wins in nine games, and each round will be decided by drawing lots, which undoubtedly adds more suspense to the competition. Higgins finally won in 2008 and will continue to use this competition system in 2009.