Christmas is approaching for snooker fans with the World Championship now less than two weeks away but before the Crucible Theatre opens its doors to the best the game has to offer, the 16 qualifiers need to be determined at the qualifying competition which begins on Monday.
128 players of all shapes and sizes from various different backgrounds enter the qualifying competition with each player dreaming of winning the number of matches they require to make it through to the showpiece occasion.
The Format
It is a 128 player event but this competition should be thought of as 16 eight player groups with each group winner progressing to take their place in the main draw. The first round sees those ranked 81-128 in the world and the 16 invited players battling it out. The 32 winners then progress to take on players ranked 49-80. Those winners go through to meet someone ranked 17-48 in the third round and the 32 winners from that round meet in the final round with the winners going into the main draw. For the first time since the pandemic the whole tournament is the traditional best of 19.
Group 1
The two seeded players to arrive in the third round of Group 1 are the top seed Ryan Day and a player who has much more potential than he has results in his career in Yuan Sijun. Two players skip the first round and enter in the second round. They are Lukas Kleckers who has shown a bit of form recently and Scott Donaldson. That leaves us with four players who will join this ground in the opening round. Ashley Hugill is one of those while Fergal O’Brien will be looking for a fairy tale run back to the Crucible from this group. George Pragnell and Liam Davies are the other players in this section.
Group 2
Jamie Jones is the leading light in Group 2 of qualifying. The Welshman probably hasn’t gone as well this season as the previous one but he can change all of that over this week. Pang Junxu arrives at the qualifiers with a good book of form behind him and along with Jones he will enter at the third round stage. Xu Si and Hammad Miah are the two men who will come in at the second round stage in this section while the four players who start right from the beginning are Zak Surety, Farakh Ajaib, the former winner of this tournament Ken Doherty and Reanne Evans who is hoping to make some history of her own this week.
Group 3
There are plenty of competitive groups in this tournament and Group 3 is certainly one of them. The former tour regular Michael Holt is one of those entering the event in the first stage and he will be joined in that round by the likes of Ng On Yee, Ben Mertens and the Brazilian player Victor Sarkis. Those four will be looking to make the second round where either Oliver Lines or Julien Leclercq will be waiting for one of them. Whoever comes through that second stage in this group will meet either Jimmy Robertson or Anthony Hamilton in the third round.
Group 4
Zhou Yuelong has slid down the rankings a little in the last few months but if he can qualify from Group 4 where he enters in the third round. If this group goes to the rankings then he will need to defeat Liam Highfield in the final qualifying round so he might take that draw. Elliot Slessor and Lei Peifan are the two players who join this group in the second round where they will both take on one of Ryan Thomerson, Ian Martin, James Cahill or the seven-time winner of this tournament in Stephen Hendry who come in from the beginning.
Group 5
Another of the competitive groups is Group 5 where the players to enter it in the opening round are Andrew Pagett, Gao Yang, Oliver Brown and Ross Muir, all of whom have been on the tour or are good enough to be on it. They will look to make the second round where the Welsh pair of Duane Jones and Jackson Page will be waiting for one of them. We could have a tasty final qualifying round match in this group if it goes to the rankings because the top two in this section are Hossein Vafaei and Martin Gould who are both class on their day.
Group 6
The Scottish Open finalist Joe O’Connor has had an excellent season but it will not be remembered all that fondly if he doesn’t qualify for the World Championship as the top seed in Group 6. If the rankings ring true he will meet Sam Craigie for a tasty final qualifying round clash. Louis Heathcote and David Grace are the second round entrants in this section so this is already quite competitive but with Andrew Higginson invited into the tournament and in this group that is even more the case. He joins in the first round as do Andy Lee, Sean O’Sullivan and Liam Graham.
Group 7
Group 7 is another competitive section of the draw. There are a number of former professionals who are in the tournament this year and Michael Georgiou is one of those entering in the first round. He will be joined there by Peng Yisong, Sanderson Lam and the young star Liam Pullen. They will all be battling it out to attempt to make it into the second round where Mark Davis and Mitchell Mann come into the group. The two top seeds in the section are Lyu Haotian and Joe Perry so whoever comes out of this group will have played well.
Group 8
Dave Gilbert is too good not to be at the Crucible but if he is going to be there then he will need to win Group 8 of the qualifying competition. Jamie Clarke has been to the final stages of the event a couple of times recently and he is the other player coming in during the third round and looking to deny Gilbert his spot in the main draw. Matthew Stevens has twice been a finalist in this tournament and he is a second round entry into this group along with Fraser Patrick. The popular and entertaining Dechawat Poomjaeng is in this section from the first round as are Mink Nutcharut, Barry Binches and Ross Bulman.
Group 9
The competitive groups keep on coming and Group 9 is another of them. The four first round players could all easily come right through and book a spot at the Crucible Theatre. Daniel Wells has had a brilliant season and will be back on tour next year so anything he does is a bonus. Steven Hallworth will look to make a name for himself while there is also Himanshu Jain and John Astley. All four will be looking to set up second round ties against Ben Woollaston or Craig Steadman. The former semi-finalist Anthony McGill and Cao Yupeng come in at the third round stage.
Special Offer
Sign up for a Boylesports account and bet £10 to get up to £20 in free bets! Perfect offer for this tournament! Click the image below for this great offer! New accounts only. 18+ T&Cs apply. Gamble Aware.
Group 10
There will be a lot of attention on Group 10 this week. Two talented Asian players Noppon Saengkham and Xiao Guodong are the two men who are coming in from the third round but the reason this group will have attention on it is because Jimmy White will appear from the second round. Zhang Anda also enters at that stage and those two will be playing one of Marco Fu, Martin O’Donnell, Andres Petrov or Stan Moody making this arguably the toughest section of the lot.
Group 11
If you have landed in Group 11 in this draw you’ve had a bit of a touch because it doesn’t look as strong as some of the other ones. The four players coming in for the first round are Dean Young, Haydon Pinhey, Jamie O’Neill and the young Hungarian player Bulscu Revesz. They will be battling it out for the right to take on either Andy Hicks or Peter Lines in the second round. The former champion Graeme Dott will be hoping to revive his best form from this section when he enters in the third round. Matt Selt is the other player coming in at that stage.
Group 12
Ricky Walden went into the qualifiers last season expected to cruise through to the main draw but once that didn’t happen he hasn’t really been able to get going this term. He does have one last chance to make up for a poor campaign when he enters in the third round. If he is going to get to the Crucible he might need to overcome Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in the final qualifying round though. Those two will be in a section with Mark Joyce and Ian Burns who begin their campaign in the second round while Mohamed Ibrahim, Anton Kazakov, Dylan Emery and Ma Hailong will all come in from the beginning.
Group 13
Group 13 could easily turn into another competitive section of the draw as there are a few veterans in it. Michael Judge is one of those and he comes into the draw at the beginning when he meets Florian Nussle. Asjad Iqbal and Jenson Kendrick are the other pair coming in at the first round stage. They will be doing battle to meet either Dominic Dale or Si Jiahui in the second round and whoever comes through those matches will take on either Tom Ford or the former Welsh Open champion Jordan Brown in the third round.
Group 14
The Shootout champion Chris Wakelin has gone all the way to the Crucible in the past and he is the highest ranked player in Group 14 and in from the third round stage as a result. The other player joining him from that stage is Tian Pengfei. Two talented cueists come in from the second round stage in this section when Michael White and Wu Yize get their campaign up and running. Those two will face one of Aaron Hill, Baipat Siripaporn, Allan Taylor or Filips Kalnins who all start their campaign in the first round.
Group 15
There are some recognisable names in the draw in Group 15 with Alfie Burden the biggest one of those who are in from the first round. Joining him in that stage are Rebecca Kenna, Muhammad Asid and Iulian Boiko. Two of those will make it through to the second round where Stuart Carrington or Alexander Ursenbacher will be waiting for them. Two former tournament winners come into this group in the third round when Fan Zhengyi and Stephen Maguire will both look to ensure they grace the Crucible with their presence.
Group 16
Barry Hawkins is a former world finalist but having dropped out of the top 16 in the world rankings if he is going to set up a shot at making another final he is going to have to win two qualifying matches because he is the top seed in the last group and comes in at the third round stage. Robbie Williams is the other man coming in at that stage. Two competent players enter from the second round when Jak Jones and Gerard Greene come to the party while the four first round players in this section are Adam Duffy, Billy Joe Castle, David Lilley and Rory McLeod.
Betting
There are a few players who take my fancy over the course of these qualifiers. The first one I’m going to chance is Ben Mertens in Group 3. I have liked the look of him this season. He has shown a couple of times that he doesn’t fear anyone. He took Ronnie O’Sullivan to a deciding frame in the English Open and in 2023 he has dumped Dave Gilbert out of the Welsh Open and beat Ricky Walden at the WST Classic recently. Mertens has a very nice draw to begin with. I think he’s too good for Victor Sarkis and then he’ll know all about Julien Leclercq who he runs into in the second round. Jimmy Robertson might be an obstacle in the third round but he’ll have two wins under his belt by then and then form goes out of the window in the final round. At 14/1 he could run deep for us.
Daniel Wells has had a really good season even though he is not on the main tour and he is a big price in Group 9. In professional tournaments which he has been invited into this term, Wells has beaten Gary Wilson, Joe Perry, John Higgins, Matthew Selt, Judd Trump, Xiao Guodong and Stephen Maguire. That is three current top 16 players and two former ones. The Selt win onwards have all come in 2023 so he is clearly playing well and will be back on the tour next season so has no ranking pressures on his shoulders unlike some he will be up against here. Wells doesn’t have the easiest draw in the world but he’s shown all season that he can beat star names. I’ll pay to see how playing with a bit more freedom than the rest helps him through.
There are not too many group favourites that I like in this draw but Tom Ford is one of them. He is another who has had a really good season and he deserves to finish that campaign off at the World Championship. Ford made the semi-final of the UK Championship and the final of the German Masters and also made the semi-final of the Six Red World Championship as well. There have been a couple of other times he could have done further in events this season too but been edged out in deciding frames. Ford has a cracking draw here. Si Jiahui is his seeded third round opponent and over 19 frames I would expect Ford to be too good for him and then Jordan Brown is the highest ranked player he could face in the final qualifying round and I expect Ford to come through that too. Even at a short price I think he’s a good thing in Group 13.
The other bet I like comes in Group 14 where I’m surprised Tian Pengfei is as short as he is to come out of that section. He has qualified twice in his career but rarely threatens a place at the Crucible and I don’t think he comes out of this group either. I think Chris Wakelin is the one to be on here. He can go into the draw a little more relaxed than most because he has banked some decent cash for winning the Shootout earlier in the season and now for the next 12 months or so everything he does is a bonus. Wakelin has qualified for the main draw in the last two seasons and three of the last five so he knows how to navigate the nerve shredding part of the season. Wakelin has been going well in 2023 having won the Shootout, reached the quarter final of the German Masters and the knockout stage of the Six Reds event. He’s too big at 3/1.
Tips
Back T.Ford to win Group 13 for a 3/10 stake at 2.38 with Coral
Back C.Wakelin to win Group 14 for a 2/10 stake at 4.00 with Coral
Back B.Mertens to win Group 3 for a 1/10 stake at 15.00 with Coral
Back D.Wells to win Group 9 for a 1/10 stake at 13.00 with Betfair
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2023
