TWO of snooker’s biggest stars have savaged the decision of tour bosses to bring 128 players to York for the williamhill.com UK Championship.

Ali Carter and Graeme Dott separately vented their anger at this year’s expanded tournament at the Barbican – with Carter claiming the venue couldn’t accommodate the numbers and Dott arguing the competition’s open format actually prevented players coming through the ranks.

Carter, who beat Ratchayothin Yotharuck 6-1, and Dott, who saw off Fraser Patrick 6-2 to reach the last 64, both played on the opening morning of matches in the main arena.

But Carter, a semi-finalist at York 12 months ago and playing on one of the end tables of the four in the hall, said of the structure: “It has got a different feel about it this year.

They are cramming four tables in there and there should be three. I haven’t been lucky enough to play out the back (sports hall) but I am sure that is going to be like a Players’ Tour Championship event.

“Taking 128 players to a venue – I don’t think it can accommodate it. It is not really a level playing field.

“On the fourth table, there is no room around the black spot area. It is not for me, this flat draw. It was working last year and why they are doing this I don’t know.

“It’s hard to believe if you are in the top 16 that you would be in favour of this. We had to come through the old system. We all started off at the bottom to get to the top. Why doesn’t everyone else?”

Dott, meanwhile, argued that it did young players no good to be repeatedly beaten by the game’s top performers as they tried to move up the snooker ladder.

“It’s a flat 128 draw and what can we do apart from complain, which we are doing? I don’t agree with anything to do with it. I think it stops players coming through,” he said.

“Off the top of my head, Neil Robertson fell off the tour. If he was playing in this format, how would he have got on? How could he have handled playing Ronnie?

“It has taken Judd Trump a long time (to establish himself). I think it is wrong for the future of the game. I think players coming through should learn their trade.

“At the end of the day there are people trying to pay their mortgages and it is half way through the season and eight players didn’t enter the UK.

“If they don’t enter the second biggest tournament then they have no money and it doesn’t work.”