Marco Fu
Ranking, Snooker Headlines

‘It’s the perfect event for Hong Kong’ – Marco Fu

Marco Fu has been one of the first to celebrate the decision to move the World Grand Prix to his home region of Hong Kong.

The 32-player tournament will take place at the Kai Tak Sports Park, a new state-of-the-art facility, from March 4th to 9th in 2025.

There had been some confusion as to where the World Grand Prix would end up this term, with on-again and off-again rumours constantly circulating regarding its potential destination.

But the World Snooker Tour officially announced the move earlier on Friday, making it the first ranking event in the special administrative region since 1989.

Mike Hallett won that year’s Hong Kong Open with a 9-8 victory over Dene O’Kane, representing the Englishman’s sole ranking glory.

The 2025 World Grand Prix, meanwhile, will feature the top 32 players on the one-year rankings list as has been the norm in recent years.

Prize money for the tournament will be boosted by a massive 84% compared to last year’s total fund, rising from £380,000 to £700,000.

The top prize jumps from £100,000 to £180,000, making it one of the richest cheques on offer on the calendar.

“The World Grand Prix is the top 32 on the one-year list,” Marco Fu told the World Snooker Tour.

“I think you’re guaranteed to see the top names there, so I think it’s the perfect event for Hong Kong.”

“I can’t wait to hopefully be able to play in it. But if not, then I’m sure it’s going to be a huge success.

“I think I’ll try even harder now to hopefully qualify for that tournament, a very prestigious tournament.

“I was fortunate enough to play in that tournament many times in my career, and hopefully I can have a chance to play in my homeland.

“I’ll try my very best, but I think I’m slightly behind in the rankings, but there’s still quite a few important tournaments coming up.

“Hopefully I can have a good run here this week and the UK Championship is coming up, so let’s see what happens.”

Marco Fu is currently down at number 52 on the one-year rankings list, £18,000 behind Jak Jones who is in the 32nd and last qualifying position at the moment.


1-Year Snooker RankingsOct 18, 2024
1Judd Trump£631,200
2Kyren Wilson£235,000
3Mark Williams£223,000
4Xiao Guodong£206,000
5Si Jiahui£188,400
6Neil Robertson£169,850
7Shaun Murphy£138,800
8Mark Selby£127,200
9Wu Yize£86,000
10Ronnie O’Sullivan£85,500
11John Higgins£72,350
12Jimmy Robertson£72,100
13David Gilbert£70,750
14Chris Wakelin£70,400
15Zhang Anda£62,750
16Jack Lisowski£60,400
17Pang Junxu£58,400
18Elliot Slessor£57,350
19Mark Allen£51,700
20Stuart Bingham£51,400
21Ali Carter£50,400
22Ben Woollaston£50,000
23Gary Wilson£49,900
24Barry Hawkins£47550
25Hossein Vafaei£47,400
26Thepchaiya Un-Nooh£47,000
27Scott Donaldson£46,350
28Long Zehuang£45,600
29Yuan Sijun£45,400
30Matthew Selt£45,250
31Xu Si£40,250
32Jak Jones£40,000
52Marco Fu£22,000
79Luca Brecel£14,400
88Ding Junhui£12,000
113Tom Ford£5,350
Click here for the full list (snooker.org)

Who has won the World Grand Prix?

The World Grand Prix was launched in 2015 as an invitational event before being upgraded to ranking event status a year later.

Since 2019, it has been the first leg of three on the Players Series that also includes the Players and Tour Championships.

Last season, Ronnie O’Sullivan beat Judd Trump 10-7 to win the World Grand Prix for the third time in his career.

Trump is also a three-time winner with Neil Robertson, Mark Allen, Shaun Murphy, and Barry Hawkins having etched their names onto the silverware in the past as well.

The last time there was a professional event in Hong Kong was the non-ranking Hong Kong Masters in 2022, when O’Sullivan beat home favourite Fu in the final.

WST CEO Simon Brownell said: “We are hugely excited to be taking such a massive event to Hong Kong.”

“This is a move which is in line with our strategy to have a greater distribution of snooker’s biggest tournaments around the world and further globalise the sport.

“Hong Kong is a territory and market of particular significance for us, and we are delighted to be utilising this new world class venue.

“Having a long-term ranking event in such a prominent global city is fantastic news for the tour.

“We were impressed by the levels of support at the Hong Kong Masters in 2022. The 9,000 fans in attendance for the final created a magical atmosphere.

“We would like to thank F Sports Promotions for bringing us back to Hong Kong and we look forward to working again with the Billiard Sports Council of Hong Kong China in this prestigious event.”

Featured photo credit: WST

9 Comments

  1. Jay brannon

    This would make the least prestigious of the Player’s Series events now carrying a bigger first prize than the Player’s Championship or Tour Championship.

    It would’ve been better to create a new event for Hong Kong or build on the Hong Masters rather than take an event that was created for ITV. The fact ITV are not covering all three Player’s Series is a pity and a little jarring for building a narrative around the series.

    • I’d assume the PC and TC prize funds will increase too. Although it’d be very WST not to consider something like that.

      • Perhaps, but they don’t have to. There’s no law which says that more elite fields must always have higher prizemoney. These Players’ Series events are all ‘bonus events’, with extra money available for those who qualify. A winner’s prize of £125k or £150k is still worth playing for! The precedent that is being set is for some promoter or backer to come along and bid for these events.

        • The Tour Championship should really have the higher prize as the series builds to the most prestigious of the three events. The Tour Championship is the most important as hardest to get in̈ and a longer frame format.

          I agree they’d still be worth playing for but would look a little odd.

      • It’s hard to see given the difficulties in getting sponsors for these UK ITV events that we will see an increase. Will be interesting to see what happens.

  2. Daniel White

    The World Grand Prix moves to Asia from the UK this season, increases the prize money and in a few years then World Championship can do the same depending in part for its justification on the proven success of the World Grand Prix’s migration and integration. I don’t think that such thorough planning is really necessary but it certainly begins to properly align the sports optics with the sports strategic vision.
    I’ve always thought that having three major ranking tournaments of high prestige be restricted to only the top players per season was an excessive number. The World Grand Prix makes sense as the top 32 players on a one year ranking mirror the 32 contestants in the World Championship finals.
    Having two more, even more exclusive, seems a bit much from a sporting point of view, if not from a business one.
    As an aside, if the World Championship leaves Sheffield then the Tour Championship would surely be a great tournament to retain and host in that venue: make all matches a one table set up: seven matches in seven days, and continue to have the “Crucible atmosphere” at the elite end of pro Snooker?

    • Yes, I agree with your thoughtful comment. Having several ‘exclusive’ events can be made to work if they have radically different character, as indeed we will see in Hong Kong. I might be concerned about distortions to the rankings (but I have a solution for that!), and potentially bleeding money away from players lower down. These are structural issues. At the moment we are clearly entering a transition.

    • The World Championship should remain in Sheffield without question. That event, which is underpinned by the Crucible character, is an event that transcends the sport. It would lose a lot if it was ever to leave and no event filling in as a substitute would fill the void.

  3. The UK Championship is now also just a 32 player field in the final stages.

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