We might not yet know the draw for the final stages of the German Masters but the full draw for the Welsh Open has now been published by World Snooker. Remember this will be the final tournament before the seedings are revised prior to the draw for the World Championship in April so every point will count…
Click here to view the draw.
As was noted at the time of his defeat to Stuart Bingham, Ronnie O’Sullivan’s exit from the top 8 following the UK Championship was always going to throw up an interesting draw at this event and so it has proved as he has been drawn with John Higgins, Shaun Murphy and Ricky Walden.
That said however, there is no guarantee that he will play any of those players should he win his matches as with Martin Gould, Liang Wenbo, Matthew Stevens and Ryan Day among the qualifiers in that section, there is every chance that any of the seeded players could be upset.
The second quarter sees 2009 champion Ali Carter pitted against former UK champions Peter Ebdon and Ding Junhui as well as Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen who must surely be due a maiden ranking event title soon. On the qualifying side, we could see another match between Judd Trump and Mark Joyce who met in Telford while Reanne Evans will fancy her chances of a maiden tour win against the an out of form Michael Judge back in the first round.
Section three houses two legends of the game in the form of Mark Williams and Stephen Hendry, though both will be hoping to player better than they did during their recent clash in Telford. Stephen in particular could do with a win as he is not yet certain of a place at the Crucible, though with few points to defend from the 2009 edition of this event he is likely to be there. Stephen Maguire meanwhile could be one to watch, his win against Mark Selby in Telford recently must have given his confidence a boost.
Speaking of Mark Selby, he can be found at the bottom of this draw along with world champion Neil Robertson as well as former Crucible kings Ken Doherty and Graeme Dott. Dangerous qualifiers include Tom Ford, Stuart Bingham and Andrew Higginson, while Jamie Burnett showed some form against James Wattana recently.