Champion of Champions 2018 – Crawley Update
Stuart Bingham booked his place at next month’s ManBetX Champion of Champions following his 9-7 victory against Mark Davis to win the English Open title on Sunday in Crawley.
The former world champion, who was the runner-up at the Ricoh Arena back in 2013 becomes the 12th player to have qualified for this season’s event by right as a tournament winner with just the International Championship now to be completed prior to this season’s Champion of Champions.
Qualification for the event will be determined by the winners of professional tournaments dating back to Shaun Murphy’s victory in 2017, events having been ordered in a specific line of priority.
Players currently qualified are set out below, numbered by qualification priority, not seeding:
1. 2017 Champion of Champions – Shaun Murphy (1)
2. 2017 UK Championship – Ronnie O’Sullivan (2)
3. 2018 Masters – Mark Allen (3)
4. 2018 World Championship – Mark Williams (4)
5. 2017 Shanghai Masters – Ronnie O’Sullivan
6. 2018 German Masters – Mark Williams
7. 2018 World Grand Prix – Ronnie O’Sullivan
8. 2018 Players Championship – Ronnie O’Sullivan
9. 2018 Championship League – John Higgins (5)
10. 2018 China Open – Mark Selby (6)
11. 2018 World Open – Mark Williams
12. 2018 Shanghai Masters – Ronnie O’Sullivan
13. 2018 China Championship – Mark Selby
14. 2018 European Masters – Jimmy Robertson (7)
15. 2018 International Championship –
16. 2017 Northern Ireland Open – Mark Williams
17. 2017 Scottish Open – Neil Robertson (8)
18. 2018 Welsh Open – John Higgins
19. 2018 English Open – Stuart Bingham (9)
20. 2018 Gibraltar Open – Ryan Day (10)
21. 2018 World Championship runner-up – John Higgins
22. 2018 Riga Masters – Neil Robertson
23. 2018 Paul Hunter Classic – Kyren Wilson (11)
24. 2018 Shoot Out – Michael Georgiou (12)
25. 2018 Romanian Masters – Ryan Day
26. 2018 Six Red World Championship – Kyren Wilson
Ranking top-ups
With only the International Championship to be completed before this year’s Champion of Champions, we now know that at least the top three players on the official world ranking list after the English Open, not already qualified for Coventry, will be invited to complete the line-up.
These players are Judd Trump (£593,000), Barry Hawkins (£593,000) and Ding Junhui (£591,025), all of whom competed in the event in 2017.
The 16th and final position is currently set to be taken by Luca Brecel as the next player in line on the ranking list following the English Open with £326,000 to his name. He could however still miss out if another player below him on the list and not already qualified for Coventry were to win the International Championship later this month.
The International Championship will be held in Daqing, China from 28 October – 4 November 2018 and is the final qualifying tournament for this year’s Champion of Champions.
Learn more about the ManBetX Champion of Champions at the tournament website.
