Ronnie O’Sullivan played before a world-record snooker crowd during his last trip to Hong Kong, but it was a bit different upon his return to the Asian city on Tuesday.
The seven-time world champion faced new World Open winner Judd Trump in a lucrative exhibition match, but the seemingly prohibitive cost of tickets for the event appeared to have priced out the locals from watching the action this time.
Perhaps it was no surprise there were such sparse numbers with tickets priced at £140 (HK$1,380) £240 (HK$2,380) and £342 (HK$3,380) to watch several of the sport’s leading men with Mark Williams, Jack Lisowski, Kyren Wilson and Marco Fu also competing in a two-day event worth over £655,000 in appearance money.
Fu was quoted as saying: “You wouldn’t see that at a normal tournament. But this is probably an exhibition, so maybe a little different, I guess.”