Champion of Champions 2019 – Riga Update
Yan Bingtao became the latest player to book his place at November’s ManBetX Champion of Champions following his 5-2 victory against Mark Joyce to win the Kaspersky Riga Masters title on Sunday.
The 19-year-old, who previously competed at the Ricoh Arena back in 2015 following his World Cup victory earlier that summer, becomes the 11th confirmed player to have qualified for this season’s event with just six more tournaments still 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 Ronnie O’Sullivan’s victory in 2018, events having been ordered in a specific line of priority.
Players currently qualified are set out below, numbered by qualification priority, not seeding:
1. 2018 Champion of Champions – Ronnie O’Sullivan (1)
2. 2018 UK Championship – Ronnie O’Sullivan
3. 2019 Masters – Judd Trump (2)
4. 2019 World Championship – Judd Trump
5. 2019 German Masters – Kyren Wilson (3)
6. 2019 World Grand Prix – Judd Trump
7. 2019 Indian Open – Matt Selt (4)
8. 2019 Players Championship – Ronnie O’Sullivan
9. 2019 Championship League – Martin Gould (5)
10. 2019 Tour Championship – Ronnie O’Sullivan
11. 2019 China Open – Neil Robertson (6)
12. 2019 International Championship – TBC
13. 2019 Shanghai Masters – TBC
14. 2019 China Championship – TBC
15. 2019 World Open – TBC
16. 2018 Northern Ireland Open – Judd Trump
17. 2018 Scottish Open – Mark Allen (7)
18. 2019 Welsh Open – Neil Robertson
19. 2019 English Open – TBC
20. 2019 Gibraltar Open – Stuart Bingham (8)
21. 2019 World Championship runner-up – John Higgins (9)
22. 2019 Riga Masters – Yan Bingtao (10)
23. 2019 World Cup – John Higgins
24. 2019 World Cup – Stephen Maguire (11)
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25. 2019 Shoot Out – Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
26. 2019 Six Red World Championship – TBC
27. 2019 World Women’s Snooker Championship – Reanne Evans
Still to qualify
With six events still to go, there remain a number of big names yet to qualify for this season’s Champion of Champions including world number three Mark Williams and three-time world champion Mark Selby, who memorably made a 147 maximum break last season against Neil Robertson at the Ricoh Arena.
Also set to be absent are the likes of Barry Hawkins, Ding Junhui and 2017 winner Shaun Murphy, meaning that there is much still to play for over the next three months.
At the time of writing, both Shoot Out king Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and for the first time reigning world women’s champion Reanne Evans remain in place to qualify should a number of the remaining events be won by players already qualified, but must wait on results at upcoming events before their places are confirmed.
The next counting event to qualify for this year’s Champion of Champions will be the International Championship, which will run from 4-11 August 2019 in Daqing, China.
Learn more about the ManBetX Champion of Champions at the tournament website.
