This was shared by Matchroom today:
CHAMPIONSHIP LEAGUE SNOOKER DRAW MADE
The draw for Championship League Snooker has been made with Judd Trump set to get the new season underway at Stadium MK when the tournament breaks off on Sunday, September 13.
Trump is the seeded player in Group One, where he will be joined by Alan McManus, David Lilley and Fan Zhengyi. On the same day, Group Two will take place with Matthew Stevens, Ryan Day, Rod Lawler and Paul Davison featuring.
World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan will enter the fray in Group 32 on Monday, October 5, concluding the second and final week of Stage One action. ‘The Rocket’ has been drawn to face Hang Li, Alex Borg and Iulian Boiko in his group.
Luca Brecel, who won the summer’s Championship League as snooker marked the return of live sport after the Covid-19 shutdown, has been drawn into Group 27 where he will face Tom Ford, Mitchell Mann and Ashley Hugill.
Players were seeded according to their World Ranking after the World Snooker Championship. Seeds 1-32 were automatically placed into the group number corresponding with their seeding, while the remaining 96 players were split into three groups based on seeding, with one player from each pot (33-64, 65-96 and 97-128) drawn at random into each group. Groups for Stages Two and Three are seeded so that Stage Two Group A will consist of the winner of Stage One groups containing seeds 1, 16, 17 & 32. Group B will consist of the winner of groups containing seeds 8, 9, 24 & 25 and so on.
Following the unprecedented success of this summer’s Championship League, the event has been expanded to a full WST ranking event feature 128 players over 21 days, split into three weeks across September and October.
- STAGE ONE will be played across two blocks of eight days: September 13-20 and September 28–October 5. This stage features 32 groups of four players, with two tables per day hosting one group each. The player who tops each group will progress to Stage Two.
- STAGE TWO (October 26-29) sees the 32 group winners split into eight further groups of four, with two groups per day also played over two tables.
- STAGE THREE (October 30) will see the eight Stage Two Group Winners battle it out over two final groups, with the two group winners contesting the best-of-5 final.
The popular group format employed during the summer’s Championship League will return to the event, which is promoted by Matchroom Multi Sport and will use Rasson tables, which have proved popular at the Champion of Champions and previous Championship League Snooker events.
Each group of four is a round robin, with matches played as best-of-four frames. Players are awarded three points for a win and one point for a draw. Players who conclude the group on an equal number of points will be separated, in this order, by net frame difference, head-to-head result and, if the players are still tied, by the highest break achieved in the group.
Championship League Snooker will be played across two Rasson tables, with one group per table. Table numbers for each group will be confirmed along with timings, fixtures and broadcast details in due course.
CHAMPIONSHIP LEAGUE SNOOKER DRAW
STAGE ONE – WEEK ONE
Sunday, September 13 Monday, September 14 Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Judd Trump Matthew Stevens Gary Wilson Barry Hawkins Alan McManus Ryan Day Robert Milkins Sam Craigie David Lilley Rod Lawler Chen Zifan Jackson Page Fan Zhengyi Paul Davison Jamie Jones Ben Hancorn Tuesday, September 15 Wednesday, September 16 Group 5 Group 6 Group 7 Group 8 Stephen Maguire Zhou Yuelong Matthew Selt Shaun Murphy Louis Heathcote Ricky Walden Ben Woollaston Martin O’Donnell Dominic Dale Gerard Greene Si Jiahui Jimmy White Leo Fernandez Jianbo Zhao Yang Gao Peter Devlin Thursday, September 17 Friday, September 18 Group 21 Group 10 Group 18 Group 12 David Gilbert Zhao Xingtong Xiao Guodong Stuart Bingham Lu Ning Liam Highfield Hossein Vafaei Yuan Sijun Xu Si Nigel Bond Jak Jones James Cahill Aaron Hill Oliver Brown Farakh Ajaib Junxu Pang Saturday, September 19 Sunday, September 20 Group 13 Group 14 Group 15 Group 16 Jack Lisowski Graeme Dott Michael Holt Mark Selby Ian Burns Liang Wenbo Anthony Hamilton Lyu Haotian Fraser Patrick Soheil Vahedi Jamie O’Neill Brandon Sargeant Rory McLeod Zak Surety Sean Maddocks Fergal O’Brien
STAGE ONE – WEEK TWO
Monday, September 28 Tuesday, September 29 Group 17 Group 11 Group 19 Group 20 Neil Robertson Anthony McGill Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Yan Bingtao Andrew Higginson Alexander Ursenbacher Sunny Akani Stuart Carrington Eden Sharav Riley Parsons Peter Lines Jordan Brown Ken Doherty Lukas Kleckers Lee Walker Michael White Wednesday, September 30 Thursday, October 1 Group 9 Group 22 Group 23 Group 24 Mark Allen Scott Donaldson Jimmy Robertson Kyren Wilson Luo Honghao Chris Wakelin Mark King Daniel Wells Billy Castle Barry Pinches David Grace Duane Jones Jamie Wilson Ashley Carty Allan Taylor Kuldesh Johal Friday, October 2 Saturday, October 3 Group 25 Group 26 Group 27 Group 28 John Higgins Kurt Maflin Tom Ford Mark Williams Joe O’Connor Martin Gould Luca Brecel Mark Joyce Amine Amiri Igor Figueiredo Mitchell Mann Lei Peifan Brian Ochoiski Simon Lichtenberg Ashley Hugill Jamie Clarke Sunday, October 4 Monday, October 5 Group 29 Group 30 Group 31 Group 32 Joe Perry Ali Carter Noppon Saengkham Ronnie O’Sullivan Elliot Slessor Mark Davis Tian Pengfei Hang Li Kacper Filipiak Chang Bingyu Robbie Williams Alex Borg Steven Hallworth Jamie Curtis-Barrett Oliver Lines Iulian Boiko
STAGE TWO
Monday, October 26 Tuesday, October 27 Group A Group B Group C Group D Winner Group 1 Winner Group 5 Winner Group 9 Winner Group 13 Winner Group 2 Winner Group 6 Winner Group 10 Winner Group 14 Winner Group 3 Winner Group 7 Winner Group 11 Winner Group 15 Winner Group 4 Winner Group 8 Winner Group 12 Winner Group 16 Wednesday, October 28 Thursday, October 29 Group E Group F Group G Group H Winner Group 17 Winner Group 21 Winner Group 25 Winner Group 29 Winner Group 18 Winner Group 22 Winner Group 26 Winner Group 30 Winner Group 19 Winner Group 23 Winner Group 27 Winner Group 31 Winner Group 20 Winner Group 24 Winner Group 28 Winner Group 32
STAGE THREE
Friday, October 30 Group 1 Group 2 Winner Group A Winner Group E Winner Group B Winner Group F Winner Group C Winner Group G Winner Group D Winner Group H
THE FINAL – Friday, October 30
Winner Group 1 vs Winner Group 2
(best of 5)
Why Ronnie who is currently world number two and reigning world Champion is seeded nr 32 is a mystery to me… the wording probably isn’t correct.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
So the missing professionals are Ding Junhui, Marco Fu, Steve Mifsud (all expected), Andy Pagett, Andy Hicks, Bai Langning and Mei Xiwen. All nodoubt for a variety of reasons. For 96 of the players, it’s just a 1-day event, so in that sense it’s a very good turn-out.
For many, there is a rare chance to appear on TV, even in a winnable match. I really hope they won’t ignore Table 2 entirely as there will be some awful matches on Table 1 (and some dead matches at the end of the group), and the broadcasters should try hard to maximise the showcase – they have little else to do.
There are some groups with some fascinating matches, and of course 10 players will be making their professional debut (and some amateurs, such as Brian Ochoiski). I do hope they won’t be hidden away on Table 2. One of the surprising lessons from the earlier version of this was how the public seemed to appreciate seeing lesser-known players for a change. We had been led to believe that people only care about the big names.
I’m mildly unhappy about the high-break rule, which can result in the climax of the day fizzling out into an adademic exercise, as with the Brecel-Lisowski match. Imagine if a player makes 3 consecutive misses with his opponent needing to win with a high break? In fact, Brecel did lose a frame that way, but fortunately not in that particular match. I sometimes wonder whether the implications of these ad-hoc rules are fully thought through. I recommended a respotted blue, which would be a thrilling end to the day if it came to that. Hopefully they will be able to schedule an earlier start than 3pm, as some of the finishes went really late.
Andrew Pagett isn;t a surprise either. He’s been very unwell over the last months, in and out of hospital. Seems to be getting better now, but probably not fully fit just yet and almost certainly didn’t practice.
Wouldn’t the draw make him seeded 2nd actually, so he is at the bottom of the draw? It is just called group 32? But still another month to see him play, though there will be good matches in September too…
Yes, Monique is right. The intentions are clear but the wording is incorrect.