Race to the Cazoo Players Championship 2022
Tomorrow (Wednesday) sees the start of the Bildbet German Masters from Berlin with the one-year ranking list following the conclusion of the event set to decide the final field for next month’s Cazoo Players Championship.
*does not show points already earned from the German Masters qualifiers
The top 16 players on the current one-year ranking list following next week’s Bildbet German Masters will qualify to play at the second leg of this season’s Cazoo Series.
Latest position as of 25/01/2022:
1st – Zhao Xintong – £215,000
2nd – Luca Brecel – £182,000
3rd – Ronnie O’Sullivan – £175,000
4th – Mark Williams – £145,000
5th – Mark Allen – £123,500
6th – Neil Robertson – £118,000
7th – John Higgins – £114,000
8th – David Gilbert – £95,500
9th – Hossein Vafaei – £91,500
10th – Kyren Wilson – £75,000
11th – Gary Wilson – £72,000
12th – Judd Trump – £63,000
13th – Jimmy Robertson – £62,500
14th – Yan Bingtao – £62,000
15th – Ricky Walden – £62,000
16th – Barry Hawkins – £59,500
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17th – Anthony McGill – £57,500
18th – Mark Selby – £57,000
19th – Stephen Maguire – £53,000
22nd – Tom Ford – £45,000
26th – Noppon Saengkham – £40,000
A further 15 players require the title to qualify.
With two rounds of the German Masters already complete, the top 11 players on the one-year ranking list are already mathematically assured of their places in Wolverhampton.
The first who could still miss out therefore is Judd Trump – defending champion in Berlin – if five players were to leapfrog him following results this week.
Already through to the last 16 having received a bye against Gao Yang, if Trump were to lose at that stage then five of the following results would need to happen to deny him a place.
- Jimmy Robertson or Yan Bingtao reaches the last 16
- Ricky Walden, Anthony McGill or Mark Selby reaches the quarter-finals
- Stephen Maguire reaches the semi-finals
- Tom Ford or Noppon Saengkham reaches the final
- One of 15 further players wins the title
With several of these players on course to face each other in the earlier rounds, although this is mathematically possible, Trump’s position appears to be relatively secure heading into the tournament.
For the following three players Jimmy Robertson, Yan Bingtao and Ricky Walden, the permutations are effectively identical, except that one fewer result by a player currently below them on the one-year list would need to go against them to miss out. For example, four of the above results would need to go against Jimmy Robertson, three against Yan and two against Ricky Walden, should they lose their openers in Berlin.
For 16th placed Barry Hawkins – who notably will not be in action this week having lost out to Michael Georgiou in qualifying – the only change is that Tom Ford would ‘only’ require a run to the semi-finals, as opposed to the final to displace him. Therefore Hawkins would miss out if:
- Anthony McGill or Mark Selby reaches the quarter-finals
- Stephen Maguire or Tom Ford reaches the semi-finals
- Noppon Saengkham reaches the final
- One of 15 further players wins the title
Those requirements are in turn the minimum that those players must achieve if they are to have any chance of qualifying for the Cazoo Players Championship.
With a top prize of £80,000 to be won and the cut-off currently standing at £59,500, every player in the draw is still in with a mathematical chance of qualification and there is therefore much to play for in Germany.
The final draw will also be seeded in accordance with the one-year ranking list giving us a further story to monitor, with top ranked Zhao Xintong poised to meet the 16th placed qualifier and so on.
You will be able to follow all of the latest movements in the qualification race and provisional draw via a daily blog which will be published here at wpbsa.com tomorrow.
