Championship League Draw

Ronnie will face Ng On Yee. Will have a rematch with Mark Joyce and also has Ian Burns in his group.

No Selby, Robbo or Ding.

A few Chinese players opting not to enter to enjoy their time back home. We will see the return of Cao Yupeng.

Reanne has Ford, Lichtenberg and Blackwell.

No Fu.

No Hendry...surely this is the sort of tournament he should be entering to get some low key match practice?

SteveJJ wrote:Ronnie will face Ng On Yee. Will have a rematch with Mark Joyce and also has Ian Burns in his group.

No Selby, Robbo or Ding.

A few Chinese players opting not to enter to enjoy their time back home. We will see the return of Cao Yupeng.

Reanne has Ford, Lichtenberg and Blackwell.

No Fu.

No Hendry...surely this is the sort of tournament he should be entering to get some low key match practice?

Pretty much. But it shows me that Hendry treats his comeback more as some sort of fun thing. He aint gonna do any damage and he knows it.

Pros not entered (18):
Ding Junhui
Fan Zhengyi
Jack Lisowski
Jamie O'Neill
Kurt Maflin
Lei Peifan
Li Hang
Liang Wenbo
Lyu Haotian
Marco Fu
Mark Selby
Neil Robertson
Stephen Hendry
Tian Pengfei
Wu Yize
Xiao Guodong
Xu Si
Zhang Anda

QS top-ups (24):
Oliver Brown
Michael Georgiou
Leo Fernandez
Mark Lloyd
Kuldesh Johal
Simon Blackwell
Bai Langning
Billy Castle
Luke Pinches
Ryan Davies
James Cahill
Soheil Vahedi
Haydon Pinhey
Dylan Emery
Si Jiahui
Michael White
Sean Maddocks
John Astley
Robbie McGuigan
Ross Muir
Michael Collumb
David Lilley
Sanderson Lam
Rod Lawler
Daniel Womersley

TheRocket wrote:

SteveJJ wrote:...
No Hendry...surely this is the sort of tournament he should be entering to get some low key match practice?

Pretty much. But it shows me that Hendry treats his comeback more as some sort of fun thing. He aint gonna do any damage and he knows it.

Most likely he will only agree to play if he is guaranteed to be on the TV table, which isn't assured with the 2-table set-up.

TheRocket wrote:

SteveJJ wrote:Ronnie will face Ng On Yee. Will have a rematch with Mark Joyce and also has Ian Burns in his group.

No Selby, Robbo or Ding.

A few Chinese players opting not to enter to enjoy their time back home. We will see the return of Cao Yupeng.

Reanne has Ford, Lichtenberg and Blackwell.

No Fu.

No Hendry...surely this is the sort of tournament he should be entering to get some low key match practice?

Pretty much. But it shows me that Hendry treats his comeback more as some sort of fun thing. He aint gonna do any damage and he knows it.

In the meantime some other player out there that didn't make the cut is eating out of bins because he has his tour card.

lhpirnie wrote:QS top-ups (24):
Oliver Brown
Michael Georgiou
Leo Fernandez
Mark Lloyd
Kuldesh Johal
Simon Blackwell
Bai Langning
Billy Castle
Luke Pinches
Ryan Davies
James Cahill
Soheil Vahedi
Haydon Pinhey
Dylan Emery
Si Jiahui
Michael White
Sean Maddocks
John Astley
Robbie McGuigan
Ross Muir
Michael Collumb
David Lilley
Sanderson Lam
Rod Lawler
Daniel Womersley

Wouldn't have been the same without Rod

lhpirnie wrote:QS top-ups (24):
Oliver Brown
Michael Georgiou
Leo Fernandez
Mark Lloyd
Kuldesh Johal
Simon Blackwell
Bai Langning
Billy Castle
Luke Pinches
Ryan Davies
James Cahill
Soheil Vahedi
Haydon Pinhey
Dylan Emery
Si Jiahui
Michael White
Sean Maddocks
John Astley
Robbie McGuigan
Ross Muir
Michael Collumb
David Lilley
Sanderson Lam
Rod Lawler
Daniel Womersley

Good to see that the non-British players on the order of merit are able to join, or at least they believe they are able to. The list above is the top 24 on the order of merit, with no one missing.

Just missing out are the following players who have 30 OoM points or more:
Joshua Thomond
Saqib Nasir
Ross Vallance
Luo Honghao
Ross Bulman
Niel Vincent
Paul Davison

Niel Vincent and Sydney Wilson miss out despite having won 7 Q School matches, while 4 players who only won 4 matches are above them on the order of merit and can play (R Davies, O Brown, M Collumb and L Pinches).

TheRocket wrote:

SteveJJ wrote:Ronnie will face Ng On Yee. Will have a rematch with Mark Joyce and also has Ian Burns in his group.

No Selby, Robbo or Ding.

A few Chinese players opting not to enter to enjoy their time back home. We will see the return of Cao Yupeng.

Reanne has Ford, Lichtenberg and Blackwell.

No Fu.

No Hendry...surely this is the sort of tournament he should be entering to get some low key match practice?

Pretty much. But it shows me that Hendry treats his comeback more as some sort of fun thing. He aint gonna do any damage and he knows it.

Hendry himself has said that pretty much but i would have expected him to play in this if you win it its only 3 days play in a month. hardly going to burn anyone out.

Juddernaut88 wrote:This will be the 4th championship league in 13 months.

Matchroom not very imaginative with tournaments.

Having no crowds is a poor excuse.

Surely he wants to be match sharp for the time when there will be crowds. If he's only expecting to play when crowds are allowed in, I'm afraid he won't be match fit and certainly won't handle the occasion and won't play well.

SnookerFan wrote:The Home Nations have tickets on sale. And the UK. The COC does too, but obviously he's not eligible.

Do they have tickets on sale for the qualifying rounds? Only 2nd round matches are at the main venues now, apart from the privileged top-16. I don't know if Barnsley are admitting spectators.

SnookerFan wrote:I don't know about qualifying, if I'm honest.

I doubt whether Stephen Hendry would be keen to travel to Barnsley for a qualifier match, particularly for the Scottish Open. It's hard to see what will attract him back to playing.

Problem for Hendry he needs match sharpness, and he'll only get it by playing matches which dont have crowds, at least for now.

He can't expect to not play for months and suddenly produce a vintage performance in front of a live audience.

Andre147 wrote:Problem for Hendry he needs match sharpness, and he'll only get it by playing matches which dont have crowds, at least for now.

He can't expect to not play for months and suddenly produce a vintage performance in front of a live audience.

i honestly thought this event would have been nailed on for hendry.

With a Minimum of 9 frames and maximum of 12 frames to be played in the first stage.