At the Gdynia Open last weekend we saw the final list set to determine who the 32 players to qualify for the new World Grand Prix would be and today World Snooker have followed that up by publishing the draw and format for the event, both of which can be accessed here.
Interestingly, the draw appears to have followed the same structure as that employed at the UK Championship during the last two years, ie drawing seeds 1 v 32, 2 v 31, 3 v 30 and so on from the Grand Prix list, to play each other.
This means that there will be a few first round matches that in terms of the official world rankings at least, may appear to be somewhat uneven, for example Ding Junhui v Ricky Walden. Both of those players are ranked inside the top eight of the world ranking list, but due to Ding’s struggles so far this season, he finds himself further down the Grand Prix list in 28th position.
The event gets underway on 16th March 2015 and will be broadcast on ITV4.