Premier League Snooker makes its return in West Sussex - 05/09/2007

NOW entering its 22nd season, the 2007 PartyBets.com Premier League Snooker gets underway on Thursday night with the opening two matches at the Olympos Dolphin, Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

Featuring seven of snooker’s greatest entertainers competing for a £250,000 prize fund over twelve nights stretching from September to December, all games in the competition are televised live by Sky Sports in a regular Thursday night slot.

Each match is played over six frames and there are two points available for a win and a point for a 3–3 draw and following the round robin section of play, the top four players moved forward to the big money play-offs in December.

The tournament starts with perennial ‘People’s Champion’ Jimmy White (pictured above) up against world number nine and former UK Champion Ding Jun-hui of China.

White, who has slipped down the rankings in recent times, will certainly be up against it, but his form in this event is good – he reached the final last year with a string of fine performances.

The second match of the evening could potentially be one of the best of the entire Premier League season as World No.1 and World Champion John Higgins faces defending Premier League Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, a man who has made this event his own over the past three years.

The prize money for the round robin section of the PartyBets.com Premier League is allocated on a ‘frames won’ basis, with £6,000 available at each match. In addition, there is a further £1,000 available for any break of 100 or over.

Successful players carry forward their bonuses to the play offs where the serious money is up for grabs. The £1,000 for a century bonus stays and the champion receives £50,000, the runner-up takes home an additional £25,000 and the beaten semi-finalists make an extra £12,500 each.

The event will be broadcast for over 50 hours LIVE coverage on Sky Sports in the UK and Matchroom Sport Television will produce 24 x 2 hour highlight programmes syndicated globally.

The seven players taking part in the 2007 Premier League Snooker are:

John Higgins (Scotland) - World Ranked No.1
Ronnie O’Sullivan (England) - World Ranked No.5
Neil Robertson (Australia) - World Ranked No.7
Stephen Hendry (Scotland) - World Ranked No.8
Ding Jun-hui (China) - World Ranked No.9
Steve Davis (England) - World Ranked No.15
Jimmy White (England) - World Ranked No.60

PartyBets.com Premier League Snooker
Latest match odds
Jimmy White 6/1
Ding Junhui 2/5
The Draw 7/2

Ronnie O'Sullivan 13/10
John Higgins 9/4
The Draw 2/1

Overall Champion
Each Way: 1/2 odds for place 1-2
Ronnie O’Sullivan 7/5
Ding Junhui 4/1
John Higgins 4/1
Neil Robertson 5/1
Stephen Hendry 13/2
Steve Davis 25/1
Jimmy White 100/1