Tomorrow sees the of the China Open qualifiers and the continuation of a very busy period in the snooker calendar. World Snooker though only released the draw for this today, and after a very busy day myself that's why the blog for this is not too far in advance of the first set of matches at 10am on Tuesday.
Most players have entered the China Open, which of course when the final stages take place at the end of March, will be the last event before the seedings cut off for the World Championships. There are couple of absentees though, unsurprisingly Ronnie O'Sullivan is one and the other main one is that of Aditya Mehta. I do not want to speculate too much but something wider may be behind this as Mehta has withdrawn from the Shoot-out, the Gdynia Open and not entered the Welsh Open.
It is also an important time in the race to make it into to the top 64 in the rankings at the end of the season and stay on the tour. £4,000 is on offer for a first round win this week which is big money in that race for spots.
Four matches in the Last 128 matches being played over the course of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are being held over under the agreement that matches of the defending champion (Mark Selby), World champion and top two Chinese players will all be held over to the venue.
That means that:
Mark Selby Vs Darryl Hill
Ding Junhui Vs Lee Walker
Liang Wenbo Vs Peter Lines
Stuart Bingham Vs Cao Yupeng
will be played on the opening day of the event in Beijing.
The matches being played this week are as follows: (Predicted winners feature in bold).
Tuesday 9th February 10am:
Jamie Jones Vs Lu Chenwei
Robbie Williams Vs Alfie Burden
Mike Dunn Vs Ashley Hugill
Anthony McGill Vs Jake Nicholson
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Vs Adam Duffy
Andrew Higginson Vs Liam Highfield (Highfield is 68th on the provisional end of season seedings list, sitting around £2,800 below Craig Steadman who is in 64th, a deficit he could make up with victory here)
Gerard Greene Vs Oliver Brown (Gerard Greene is currently 66th on the provisional EOS seedings list, just over £1,300 short of Craig Steadman, with £4,000 on offer for victory here)
Robin Hull Vs Eden Sharav
Tuesday 9th February 2.30pm:
Dominic Dale Vs Hatem Yassen
Gary Wilson Vs Paul Davison
Mark Davis Vs Steven Hallworth
Jamie Burnett Vs Ross Muir
Matt Selt Vs Jamie Cope
David Gilbert Vs Duane Jones
Xiao Guodong Vs Nigel Bond
Tom Ford Vs Michael Wild
Tuesday 9th February 7pm:
Michael White Vs Craig Steadman (Craig is currently the "bubble boy" 64th on the provisional end of season rankings).
Jack Lisowski Vs Zhang Yong
Jimmy Robertson Vs Itaro Santos
Robert Milkins Vs Daniel Wells
Matthew Stevens Vs Chris Melling
Ricky Walden Vs Barry Pinches
Rod Lawler Vs Hammad Miah
Peter Ebdon Vs Michael Georgiou
Wednesday 10th February 10am:
David Morris Vs James Wattana (David Morris is 65th on the Provisional end of season seedings. However, he is only £766 behind with £4,000 for a first round win)
Marco Fu Vs Gareth Allen
Yu De Lu Vs Vinnie Calabrese
David Grace Vs Jason Weston
Mark Joyce Vs Sean O'Sullivan
Zhou Yuelong Vs Jordan Brown
Sam Baird Vs Allan Taylor
Wednesday 10th February 2.30pm:
Stephen Maguire Vs Andy Hicks
Alan McManus Vs Sydney Wilson
Mark King Vs Hamza Akbar
Ali Carter Vs Alex Taubman
Shaun Murphy Vs Zak Surety
Ben Woollaston Vs Zhao Xintong
Graeme Dott Vs Jimmy White
Michael Holt Vs Matthew Day
Wednesday 10th February 7pm:
Joe Perry Vs Fraser Patrick
Mark Allen Vs Mitchell Mann
Neil Robertson Vs Hossein Vafei Ayouri
Martin Gould Vs Scott Donaldson
Luca Brecel Vs Zhang Anda (Zhang is currently 69th on the EOS list £3,800 behind 64th placed Steadman as it stands)
Barry Hawkins Vs Sanderson Lam
Ryan Day Vs Brett Miller
Kyren Wilson Vs Anthony Hamilton (Hamilton still has some small hope, he may be £10,000 adrift and in 73rd position on the EOS list but a player of his class could make that up but he needs a win here against Wilson)
Thursday 11th February 10am:
Rory McLeod Vs James Cahill
Stuart Carrington Vs Lu Ning (Stuart Carrington is currently sitting in 63rd on the Provisional EOS list £1,200 clear of Morris who is 65th)
Kurt Maflin Vs Chris Wakelin
Joe Swail Vs Ian Glover
Li Hang Vs Thor Chuan Leong
Tian Pengfei Vs Leo Fernandez
Dechawat Poomjaeng Vs Michael Leslie
Fergal O'Brien Vs Ian Burns (Burns is in 67th on the EOS list, roughly £1,650 adrift of 64th placed Steadman for now)
Thursday 11th February 2.30pm:
Ken Doherty Vs Rhys Clark
Judd Trump Vs Joel Walker
Mark Williams Vs Martin O'Donnell
Oliver Lines Vs Noppon Saengkham
John Higgins Vs Michael Wasley
That's the schedule for the China Open qualifying, an odd one really with only a handful of games on the Thursday by comparison to the other two days, and a few notes on how players in immediate threat around the 64 spot sit coming into the week. After this event we of course have the Snooker Shoot-out from Friday until Sunday with the Welsh Open starting on Monday. These qualifiers offer immediate importance but also a chance for those who have not had a competitive match since before Christmas, to play themselves in ahead of all 128 players appearing at the venue in Cardiff for the Welsh Open.
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