Up next is the Shootout, which starts this Wednesday.
One frame of ten minutes to decide every match. 15 seconds per shot for the first half of the frame, 10 seconds for the second half. There'll be lots of crowd involvement and plenty of commotion on and off the table. It's always good natured but whether it's entertaining is another matter. I understand it's to try and bring new fans to the game, in a similar way T20 did with cricket. And as a one off tournament I suppose it has a place on the calendar. A number of the big name players aren't taking part this year, Trump, O'Sullivan, Higgins, Robertson and a few others. But that does open up the opportunity for amateurs and some of the female players to get a go. And there's always a kid or two who get a go, this year 14 year old Riley Powell is taking on Kyren Wilson.
Hossein Vafaei is the defending champ, having won it last year and getting his hands on a ranking tournament. So he'll open this year up with a match against Shaun Murphy. It's hard to pick exciting match ups in this format because they all have the potential to go to the wire or be wrapped up early by a good 50 or 60 break by one player. But Vafaei/Murphy looks like rather tasty on paper as does Lisowski against Allen.
It's also nigh on impossible to pick a winner given the format and when you look at the previous winners, it's hardly a who's who of snooker legends. Since it became a ranking event, Anthony McGill, Michael Georgiou, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Michael Holt and Ryan Day have lifted the title as well as Vafaei last year. So it really is a case of close your eyes, stick a pin in the list and see where it lands.
My guess is Tom Ford.
Draw in full;
Wednesday afternoon session
Hossein Vafaei v Shaun Murphy
Vladislav Gradinari v Ng On-yee
Jamie O'Neill v Ryan Thomerson
Liam Graham v Cao Yupeng
Ian Martin v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Graham Dott v Sam Craigie
Robbie McGuigan v Hammad Miah
James Cahill v Jordan Brown
Joe Perry v Luca Brecel
Lukas Kleckers v Rod Lawler
Joe O'Connor v Dylan Emery
Barry Pinches v Michael Judge
Anthony Hamilton v Ben Mertens
Andy Hicks v Fraser Patrick
Jack Borwick v Ali Carter
Mark Williams v Craig Steadman
Wednesday evening session
Jack Lisowski v Mark Allen
Martin Gould v Jamie Clarke
Alexander Ursenbacher v Aaron Hill
Robbie Williams v Mink Nutcharut
Mark Joyce v Victor Sarkis
Robert Milkins v Andy Lee
Sean O'Sullivan v Dean Young
Andrew Pagett v Ashley Hugill
Stephen Maguire v Ken Doherty
Jamie Jones v Jenson Kendrick
Ben Woollaston v Sanderson Lam
Muhammed Asif v Gerard Greene
Louis Heathcote v Oliver Lines
Jimmy White v Adam Duffy
Peng Yisong v Daniel Wells
Barry Hawkins v Jackson Page
Thursday afternoon session
Riley Powell v Kyren Wilson
Andres Petrov v Noppon Saengkham
Zak Surety v Fergal O'Brien
Fan Zhengyi v Ding Junhui
Michael Georgiou v Tian Pengfei
Matthew Stevens v Dominic Dale
John Astley v Pang Junxu
Peter Lines v Julien Leclercq
David Grace v Lyu Haotian
Mark King v Jak Jones
Lei Peifan v Michael Holt
Yuan Sijun v Rebecca Kenna
Zhang Anda v Callum Beresford
Duane Jones v Zhou Yuelong
Dechawat Poomjaeng v Si Jiahui
Jimmy Robertson v Ryan Day
Thursday evening session
Mark Davis v Mark Selby
Alfie Burden v Ian Burns
Liam Highfield v Florian Nüßle
Michael White v Mitchell Mann
David Lilley v Oliver Brown
Asjad Iqbal v Dave Gilbert
Stuart Bingham v Reanne Evans
Ricky Walden v Gary Wilson
Steven Hallworth v Stuart Carrington
Xiao Guodong v Anton Kazakov
Elliot Slessor v Allan Taylor
Farakh Ajaib v Chris Wakelin
Xu Si v Matthew Selt
Ross Muir v Wu Yize
Himanshu Jain v Tom Ford
Mohamed Ibrahim v Haydon Pinhey
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