Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters Axed After Just Two Editions — and Players Found Out by Email
A tournament billed as snooker's 'fourth major' is gone — and the sport's players are furious at how they were told
Barry Hawkins had just come off the Crucible baize on Saturday morning, having beaten Mark Williams 13-9 in a high-quality World Championship last-16 match that few outside Sheffield will forget in a hurry. He should have been walking into the practice room in a decent mood. Instead, his phone had already delivered news that stopped him cold. A brief, corporate email. No phone call, no explanation, no warning. The Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters — the event that had been announced with such fanfare as a decade-long centrepiece of the sport's global ambitions — was gone.
"What a disappointment," said Hawkins, not bothering to conceal his frustration. "We don't get no explanation, nothing, which is very, very annoying. We just get some stupid email saying it's been stopped. No explanation, nothing. Very disappointing — it's a massive tournament to lose."
From 'fourth major' to footnote in under two years
Cast your mind back to 2024, and the mood around snooker's Saudi venture was one of genuine excitement. A 10-year deal had been announced, backed by a £2.3 million prize fund — the richest ranking event outside the United Kingdom. The winner's cheque of £500,000 matched the World Championship itself, a fact that gave you some sense of the ambitions attached to the project. Organisers were already talking about it in the same breath as the sport's established majors. Two editions took place. Neil Robertson won the most recent, defeating Ronnie O'Sullivan in August 2025. And then, just like that, it was over.
The World Snooker Tour issued a statement that was notable more for what it didn't say than what it did. "Following constructive discussions between The Saudi Billiard and Snooker Federation and Matchroom following the conclusion of the 2025 editions," it read, "it has been mutually agreed not to proceed with future editions of the World Pool Championship and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters." Mutually agreed. The kind of phrase that tells you almost nothing while sounding thoroughly reasonable. Hawkins, for one, wasn't buying it. "What's happened to the 10-year contract?" he asked. "It's just been blown out of the water. It'd be interesting to see the reason behind it."
Barry Hearn's candid admission adds context
If the players were left in the dark by an email, the broader picture had actually been painted — at least partially — by Barry Hearn earlier in the week. The president of Matchroom Sport, which has held a controlling stake in World Snooker since 2010, acknowledged that the situation in the Middle East was making things complicated. "Saudi is a problem," Hearn said. "We don't know where that problem's going to lead to."
He went on to paint a picture of a region reconsidering its spend on sports investment more broadly. "Saudi, whether we're talking LIV Tour [golf] or other Olympic sports, are looking to cut back," he said, adding that Matchroom retained good influence through boxing and other interests in the area. He stopped short of writing off snooker's future in Saudi entirely — "Yes, there will be snooker in Saudi," he insisted — but the honesty in his tone was clear. "In fairness, I can't tell you what exactly at the moment until this problem changes." Within days, the cancellation was confirmed.
What snooker actually loses
It's worth dwelling on what the tour is giving back here, because it isn't trivial. The Saudi Masters wasn't simply a cheque that players could cash. It was a ranking event — meaning every point accumulated there fed directly into world rankings and seedings. For the Barry Hawkinses of the tour, the mid-to-upper tier who are always fighting to preserve their status and keep the top seeds honest, an event like this represents tangible opportunity. With a prize fund stretching deep enough that even first-round losers left with meaningful earnings, it softened the brutal economics of life on the professional circuit.
The loss also raises a wider question about the direction of the sport's international expansion. Snooker has made significant strides in recent years — China remains a cornerstone, with events in Shanghai and beyond drawing huge television audiences, and the European circuit has grown steadily. But the promise of sustained Middle Eastern investment, the prospect of building a new fanbase in a region with significant purchasing power and media influence, now looks considerably shakier than it did eighteen months ago.
A tournament without a proper goodbye
Perhaps what stings most — and you can hear it in Hawkins' words — is the lack of ceremony around it. Major tournaments don't usually disappear quietly. They fade or they fight. The Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters did neither. Two editions, a brief but glossy chapter, and then a corporate press release. For a sport that prides itself on tradition, on the weight of its history, on the reverence with which it treats its great occasions, it's a peculiarly undignified ending. The players deserved better than a Saturday morning email. The tournament deserved better than this.
