John Higgins will play Mark Williams in the first match of the 2011 Championship League, which begins on January 3.
Higgins recovered from 9-5 down to beat Williams 10-9 in the final of the 12bet.com UK Championship last Sunday.
Their match at Crondon Park Golf Club in Essex will be over a shorter distance - five frames.
Higgins and Williams are part of a high quality line-up for group one, which also includes Ali Carter, Stephen Maguire, Graeme Dott, Mark Selby and Shaun Murphy.
The top four in the group will contest the play-offs with the winner through to the final winners' group in March.
The bottom two players will be relegated while the remaining four players go into group two on January 5 and 6, where they will be joined by Neil Robertson, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Jamie Cope.
Stephen Hendry, Ding Junhui, Mark Allen, Peter Ebdon and Marco Fu are among the well known names who will play in later groups.
The seven group winners contest the final group, the winner of which receives an invite into the Premier League.
The Championship League, now in its fourth year, is shown live on the internet on various betting websites.
Players receive £100 for every frame won, plus bonuses in the play-offs and a £10,000 eventual first prize.
19 comments:
which betting websites?
I'll have the full list nearer the time, it's usually about 12 sites.
Pity it's been scheduled to clash with the PDC darts. Sky have far better viewing figures for the darts and obviously this gets precedence.
Maybe a mistake by Mr. Hearn?
will tony drago play in this?
It doesn't clash with the darts. The snooker will be over by the time the darts final starts.
Drago's not in it because the field is taken from the ranking list and there's only 25 players in it.
Dave: why's Ronnie playing? He's already qualified as defending champion.
Ditto Neil as World Champion.
Are there points attached now?
They're playing because they want to play: good match practice plus a chance to earn money
There will probably be a new world champ by the time the selection is made for the next League.
Anyone else finding the new look world snooker website a bit tricky to navigate?
Will Mark King be playing in the league this year?
Any reason why Jamie Cope is in earlier group than Ding / Mark Allen despite being lower in the ranking list?
Players are invited based on their ranking but don't always want to play in the specific group they are invited to.
For example: Robertson asked to be in group 2 rather than group 1.
Mark King will be in group 3.
is that cause of time/date of the group matches?
id be peed off if neil picked my group and made it more difficult............
But Neil might turn up late to give you a 2 frame headstart.
Or so you wish....
If they work down the ranking list you'd be better off waiting for group 3/4. I mean, would you really want to play in the first group where all players are probably going to be top 16?
Can World Snooker broadcast this on their site? I'm not interested in betting, I just want to watch a bit of snooker.
You don't have to bet to watch, anon. Just register for the site and you can watch it. If you're worried about spam get a hotmail address.
Any idea why World Snooker hsn't bothered making the last 32 draw for the German Masters yet?
Alpha
any news on what sites we can view this on ?.
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