2018 World Championship

[JimMalone]

Qualifying Draw is now also complete. You can see it in the second post. :smile:

[Odrl]

At first glance, Selby got a pretty tough quarter. All the players from the 5-8 group are tough opponents, so he can't really complain about getting Murphy, but getting Allen in the 2nd round is a little harsh. The Masters doesn't affect the rankings, which means Allen is much lower than his ability and results would suggest. I know I would much rather face McGill or Carter in the 2nd round anyway...

O'Sullivan has landed in a dream quarter for him, with two players he has an extremely dominant record against, so he should be fine. He is still a big favourite even if he ends up playing Robertson, but I'm sure he would prefer Williams in the quarter-finals.

Trump drawn against his nemesis Higgins, that could be tough for him... I can definitely see one of those two getting through in this quarter, rather than Bingham or Brecel.

Ding seems to be the big winner here. We know Hawkins plays well at the Crucible, but an in-form Ding really should take care of business in that quarter. :smile:

[armstm]

Bottom half - touch wood - looks ok for Ronnie. Selby would have a tough 2nd round match against mark allen and then potentially Higgins and Trump.

[JimMalone]

Draw for the qualifying

First Round
Upper Half
Ryan Day – Igor Figueiredo
Mitchell Mann – Peter Lines
Robbie Williams – Jak Jones
Peter Ebdon – James Wattana

Zhou Yuelong – Ian Preece
Daniel Wells – Kurt Dunham
Tom Ford – Leo Fernandez
Liam Highfield – Chen Zhe

Matthew Selt – Ng On Yee
Mark Joyce – Adam Duffy
Mei Xiwen – Basem Eltahan
Xiao Guodong – Chris Totten

Stuart Carrington – Nigel Bond
Ben Woollaston – Kacper Filipiak
Zhang Anda – Zhang Yong
Martin Gould – Paul S. Davison

Graeme Dott – Adrian Justin Ridley
Sunny Akani – Lukas Kleckers
Dominic Dale – Reanne Evans
Mike Dunn – Duane Jones

Michael Holt – Thor Chuan Leong
Elliot Slessor – Eden Sharav
Robert Milkins – Aaron Canavan
Scott Donaldson – Tyler Rees

Rory McLeod – Ian Burns
Li Hang – Ashley Hugill
Lyu Haotian – Fang Xiongman
Anthony Hamilton – Martin O'Donnell

Matthew Stevens – Ryan Thomerson
Fergal O'Brien – Yuan Sijun
Ken Doherty – Josh Boileau
Mark King - Gerard Greene

Bottom Half
Liang Wenbo – Rod Lawler
Zhao Xintong – Adiya Mehta
Yu Delu – Sean O'Sullivan
Jamie Jones – Craig Steadman

Jack Lisowski – Christopher Keogan
David Grace – Wang Yuchen
Alan McManus – Rhys Clark
Oliver Lines – Harvey Chandler

Andrew Higginson – David John
Cao Yupeng – Robin Hull
Lee Walker – Kristjan Helgason
Ricky Walden – Joe Swail

Michael Georgiou – Matthew Bolton
Mark Davis – Sanderson Lam
Sam Craigie – Jimmy White
Joe Perry – Ross Muir

Yan Bingtao – Jackson Page
Tian Pengfei – Li Yuan
Kurt Maflin – Hamza Akbar
Chris Wakelin – Xu Si

David Gilbert – Billy Joe Castle
Alfie Burden – Jamie Curtis-Barrett
Gary Wilson – Adam Stefanow
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh – Alexander Ursenbacher

Sam Baird – Soheil Vahedi
Jimmy Robertson – Alex Borg
John Astley – Marvin Lim
Michael White – Niu Zhang

Noppon Saengkham – Chen Zifan
Hossein Vafaei – Jamie Cope
Hammad Miah – Jordan Brown
Stephen Maguire – Allan Taylor

[JimMalone]

The highlight of the season is just a few days away and with no tournament left before now that the China Open are finished we can focus fully on the World Championship in Sheffield.
The qualifying will start at Wednesday and answer the last question about this edition's competitors, but there already plenty of things we know:

Prize Fund and Ranking Points
Winner: £425,000
Runner-up: £180,000
Semifinal: £85,000
Quarterfinal: £42,500
Last 16: £27,500
Last 32: £18,000

For the qualifiers:
Last 48: £13,500
Last 80: £9,000

Draw
Upper Half
Mark Selby (1) - Joe Perry (22)
Mark Allen (16) - Liam Highfield (64)

Kyren Wilson (9) - Matthew Stevens (52)
Shaun Murphy (8) - Jamie Jones (51)

John Higgins (5) - Thepchaiya Un-Nooh (58)
Stuart Bingham (12) - Jack Lisowski (30)

Luca Brecel (13) - Ricky Walden (27)
Judd Trump (4) - Chris Wakelin (55)


Bottom Half
Ding Junhui (3) - Xiao Guodong (25)
Anthony McGill (14) - Ryan Day (17)

Marco Fu (11) - Lyu Haotian (68)
Barry Hawkins (6) - Stuart Carrington (56)

Mark Williams (7) - Jimmy Robertson (34)
Neil Robertson (10) - Robert Milkins (37)

Ali Carter (15) - Graeme Dott (21)
Ronnie O'Sullivan (2) - Stephen Maguire (18)