World Champion Stuart Bingham will break off snooker’s Champion of Champions tournament in Coventry this year with Judd Trump also in opening-day action at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry, live on ITV4.
Bingham, the beaten finalist in the inaugural Champion of Champions in 2013, will play the opening match on Tuesday, November 10 against an unseeded player to be drawn into Group 3 once the field is complete.
Joe Perry will play in Group 1 on Wednesday, November 11. Thursday, November 12 sees Neil Robertson and Crucible runner-up Shaun Murphy both in Group 4 action while World No.1 Mark Selby begins his Champion of Champions campaign on Friday, November 13 where he is joined in Group 2 by Barry Hawkins.
Each seeded player will play an unseeded opponent in a best-of-seven group match in the afternoon session with the two winners clashing over 11 frames in the evening.
The four group winners will proceed to the best-of-11 semi-finals on Saturday, November 14 before Sunday, November 15 sees a two-session final played over 19 frames.
Fifteen players have already received an invite to the 16-man tournament with the winner of the International Championship in Daqing, China to join the field. If no player who hasn’t already qualified wins one of the Euro Tour or Asian Tour events prior to the Champion of Champions then Six Reds World Champion Thepchaiya Un-Nooh will join the field.
Group Fixtures
Tuesday November 10, Group 3 (first match at 1pm)
Stuart Bingham (3) v To Be Drawn
Judd Trump (6) v To Be Drawn
Wednesday, November 11, Group 1 (first match at 1pm)
TBC v To Be Drawn
Joe Perry (8) v To Be Drawn
Thursday, November 12, Group 4 (first match at 1pm)
Neil Robertson (4) v To Be Drawn
Shaun Murphy (5) v To Be Drawn
Friday, November 13, Group 2 (first match at 1pm)
Mark Selby (2) v To Be Drawn
Barry Hawkins (7) v To Be Drawn
Tickets for this year’s Champion of Champions are now on sale at The Ticket Factory from just £10. Standard priced tickets for the weekend sessions are now sold out, but in anticipation of extra seats being released a waiting list has been set up at https://championofchampionssnooker.co.uk/tickets/.
The participation of all players is subject to contracts being agreed.
Champion of Champions features winners of tournaments in the preceding 12 months. Promoted by Matchroom Sport, this is the third year of snooker’s new showpiece event.
The tournament will start with a quartet of four-man groups, with the winner of each group progressing to the semi-finals. The final on Sunday November 15 will be over 19 frames.
Qualifying events take order of precedence with the 14 major tournaments on the World Snooker schedule in the first group of events. The second group comprises six Euro Tour events and the third group has three Asian Tour events. The final group is the three tournaments – Shoot Out, World Seniors and Six Reds – that fall outside the other three groups.
