Champion of Champions 2017 – Guangzhou Update
Luca Brecel became the latest player to book his place at this year’s Champion of Champions yesterday following his maiden ranking title success at the Evergrande China Championship.
This year’s event will take place from 6-12 November and once again 16 players will be among the field battling it out for the top prize of £100,000 at Coventry’s Ricoh Arena.
As in previous seasons, qualification for the event will be determined by the winners of professional tournaments dating back to John Higgins victory in 2016, events having been ordered in a specific line of priority.
Players currently qualified are set out below, numbered by qualification priority, not seeding:
1. 2016 Champion of Champions – John Higgins (1)
2. 2016 UK Championship – Mark Selby (2)
3. 2017 Masters – Ronnie O’Sullivan (3)
4. 2017 World Championship – Mark Selby
5. 2017 German Masters – Anthony Hamilton (4)
6. 2017 World Grand Prix – Barry Hawkins (5)
7. 2017 Championship League Snooker – John Higgins
8. 2017 Players Championship – Judd Trump (6)
9. 2017 China Open – Mark Selby
10. 2017 China Championship – Luca Brecel (7)
11. 2017 Shanghai Masters (Sep) – tbc
12. 2017 Indian Open (Sep) – tbc
13. 2017 European Masters (Oct) – tbc
14. 2017 International Championship (Nov) – tbc
15. 2016 Northern Irish Open – Mark King (8)
16. 2016 Scottish Open – Marco Fu (9)
17. 2017 Welsh Open – Stuart Bingham (10)
18. 2017 English Open (Oct) – tbc
19. 2017 Gibraltar Open – Shaun Murphy (11)
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20. 2017 World Championship runner-up – John Higgins
21. 2017 Riga Masters – Ryan Day (12)
22. 2017 Paul Hunter Classic (Aug) – tbc
23. 2017 World Cup – Ding Junhui (13)
24. 2017 World Cup – Liang Wenbo (14)
25. 2017 Shoot Out – Anthony McGill (15)
26. 2017 Hong Kong Masters – Neil Robertson (16)
27. 2017 6 Reds World Championship (Sep) – tbc
Who is safe?
At the time of writing, 20 of the 27 counting events have been taken by 16 individual players, who are all currently in line to secure a place at the Ricoh Arena in November. This leaves seven events remaining through which players not yet qualified can still earn themselves a place at this year’s event.
Since the start of the season we have seen Ryan Day, Ding Junhui, Liang Wenbo, Neil Robertson (the Hong Kong Masters a late addition to the list) and now Luca Brecel move into position to qualify for Coventry, all players who had previously not won events during the counting period.
Of those however, only Brecel can be certain of qualification, his success placing him in seventh position on the priority list with no events still to be played higher than that. He joins a group of all of the above players down to Gibraltar Open winner Shaun Murphy in being secure, while Day, Liang, Anthony McGill and Neil Robertson could still miss out if events continue to be won by previously ‘unqualified’ players as has been the case so far this season.
In most danger is Robertson, who in 16th position will be hoping that the recent trend of non-qualified winners continues over the coming months if he cannot claim further silverware himself.
Among the big names not yet among the field are Mark Allen, World Games winner Kyren Wilson and Ali Carter.
The potential place will be decided at this weekend’s Paul Hunter Classic in Germany, with the winner in line to move into 13th place on the list if not already qualified.
