The World Snooker Championships at the Crucible appear to be evolving with the times. While tobacco sponsorship of sport in the UK will be phased out over the next two years, snooker may get a reprieve until 2006 - but only if they can convince everyone that the competition is perceived to be a truly world event.

This year only three non-UK players have qualified. Marco Foo from Hong Kong, Tony Drago from Malta and Kristjan Helgason from Iceland all go into the Sheffield 2000 melting pot.

The difficulty officials have in making the Championships a bona fide world event is that the top 16 players in the world, i.e. those who automatically qualify, are entirely made up of players from the UK and Ireland.

Helgason, incidentally, is the first ever Icelandic player to qualify. His country shows only two hours of snooker a year although this time they plan to cover all of his matches.