Egypt’s Mohamed Khairy all set for professional snooker tour – Snooker News
One of the top potters on African soil, Egypt’s Mohamed Khairy played impressively in the African Snooker Championship and reached the final encounter against Peter Francisco. Despite playing convincingly in the final, Khairy failed to improvise accordingly
during the final clash and lost to Francisco by the score line of 6-3.
Due to a tremendous performance in the Championship, Francisco was selected by the African Billiards and Snooker Association (ABSA) for the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) professional snooker tour for the next two seasons but
he rejected to participate in the circuit. After his decision, the African association nominated Khairy for the two-year professional tour.
Khairy will be taking part in the professional circuit for the first time in his career. The selection was done on the basis of new criteria of the WPBSA. According to the new set of rules for the professional circuit, 128 cuemen will be given a chance to
try their luck in the professional circuit for the next two years. Before this reform, 100 potters from around the world used to have a place in the professional circuit.
While speaking to World Snooker about Khairy’s selection, the WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson said, “We welcome Mohamed Khairy to the tour and we are pleased to have given Africa representation for the first time. Part of our strategy to globalise snooker
is to work with the five Olympic regions - Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas and Oceania - and to assist the growth of our sport in those areas.”
Meanwhile, from International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) which also governs Asian snooker nominated the current IBSF World Snooker Championship winner, Iran’s Hossein Vafaei Ayouri for the professional circuit spot.
Ayouri was quite excited about his selection and expressed his joy saying, “I am very excited and determined to succeed on the pro circuit. I have played as a wild card in two ranking events in China and I can't wait to play in the big tournaments.”
The new professional circuit of the 2012-13 Snooker Season will commence with the launch of Players Tour Championship (PTC) but before that the World Snooker Qualifying School (Q School) will start to feature 12 more amateurs to play in the professional
circuit.
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