Player Selection
The tournament has featured some of the most famous players in cue sports, including Earl Strickland, Johnny Archer, Jimmy White, Alex Higgins, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Ralf Souquet, and Steve Davis.
In its earliest days, the Mosconi Cup was created by Sky Sports and Matchroom Sport as an exhibition event to increase public awareness of pool in the United Kingdom. In the first year of competition some of the WPBA's top players played alongside the men in their respective teams. These included Franziska Stark (Germany), Allison Fisher (England), Jeanette Lee (US) and Vivian Villarreal (US).
As time progressed, the event evolved from its exhibition nature into a much more serious and professional tournament, and earning a place in the event has acquired a great deal of prestige. Of the snooker players, only Steve Davis remained into the event's more serious era, bowing out when the event began to clash with snooker's UK Championship (for which he appeared as both a player and a BBC commentator).
After Davis' withdrawal, all players had to earn an invitation through their performances at other events, meaning that no more snooker players appeared until 2007, when Tony Drago earned a place by virtue of his performance on the European Pool Tour, and won the tournament's Most Valuable Player award for his unbeaten run in the singles matches.
Read more about this topic: Mosconi Cup
Famous quotes containing the words player and/or selection:
“Between the daylight gambler and the player at night there is the same difference that lies between a careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady’s window.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“It is the highest and most legitimate pride of an Englishman to have the letters M.P. written after his name. No selection from the alphabet, no doctorship, no fellowship, be it of ever so learned or royal a society, no knightship,—not though it be of the Garter,—confers so fair an honour.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)