Shaun Murphy has some sympathy for Kyren Wilson after the world champion complained about his treatment on tour, but also reminded the Warrior that he is entitled to very little.
Wilson won the World Championship in May and has already added more silverware to his collection by lifting the trophy at the Xi’an Grand Prix in August.
However, the 32-year-old does not feel that he is getting the respect he deserves as world champ, venting his frustrations after a last 16 defeat to Elliot Slessor in the British Open last week, played on table two while Mark Selby and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh played on the main TV table.
‘Same s**t different day,’ Wilson wrote on Instagram. ‘Demoted to table 2 again and get found out! What benefits does a world champion get nowadays? Graveyard shift in Brentwood [English Open], table 2 in Saudi every game while being the number 1 seed there! Table 2 tonight in Cheltenham and being the highest ranked in the session…unfortunately nothing ever changes with the sport I love. If your face doesn’t fit…tough.’
He added on X: ‘People can have their opinions. Always been that you earn the right for the privileges. Apparently not anymore.
‘I always try to promote the sport & be a good ambassador for it. What’s the point?’
Murphy, who won the World Championship in 2005, remembers similar frustrations to Wilson at the time of his greatest triumph, feeling that the established stars were still getting preferential treatment despite his success.
However, the Magician says he has come to realise that commercial factors influence decisions like which matches are played on which tables and the world champion has no right to be guaranteed anything.
‘I see this from all angles,’ Murphy said on his OneFourSeven podcast of the situation. ‘I remember going back to one of my first matches shortly after I won the World Championship, we got put on table three or four. I remember having a robust chat with Mike Ganley, the tournament director, about the whys and wherefores of a 22-yea-rold world champion being put on table four. I thought I should have been front of house. They put Stephen Hendry and Jimmy White out the front.
‘I made the point that Kyren was trying to make, which is that if you keep putting the same faces out, they are the known faces, so how do we make any room for new characters to come through if it’s always the same faces being shown?
‘The flip side to that is that WST (World Snooker Tour) and its partners and sponsors are involved in the sport to make money. They and the TV companies have to decide which matches will pull in the most viewers, that’s it.
‘There is no such rule that says if you’re the world champion you’ll be on table one, or if you are the defending champion you’ll be on table one. No such rule exists. There’s a couple of players that move the needle so much that when they play they’ll always be on table one.
‘It’s about time the players understood that it’s about which match is the most attractive, the most exciting, which is going to pull more viewers in and that’s the one that will go first, it’s no more complicated than that.
‘Kyren asks what are the rewards for being world champion. You’ve got half a million pounds, that was your reward for winning the World Championship. And you’ll forever be known as a world champion, that’s your reward. It doesn’t entitle you to be on table one every match.’
Wilson is next in action on Sunday in his opening game in the Wuhan Open against Liam Davies, while Murphy gets his campaign underway against Anthony Hamilton the following day.
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