Mark Selby beat Jack Lisowski in last year’s final
The world ranking event will feature 128 players battling for the Stephen Hendry Trophy. Televised by Quest, Eurosport, Matchroom.Live and a range of other broadcasters worldwide, it will be the third in the season’s Home Nations Series. Judd Trump has already won the first two events, the English Open and Northern Ireland Open.
World number one Trump will meet Alexander Ursenbacher in the opening round while World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan will face Allan Taylor.
Scotland’s top star John Higgins will play Soheil Vahedi while legend Jimmy White will be up against Mark Allen.
The Scottish Open will be the final counting event for the World Grand Prix, with only the top 32 on the one-year ranking list earning a place.
Full details of how to watch the event will be released soon.
Ronnie will play his first match on the Tuesday evening.
Those are the first round matches of interest to me, other than the obvious one, Ronnie vs “Pretzel”:
Jack Lisowski v Oli Lines
Ricky Walden v Pang Junxu
Iulian Boiko v Joe O’Connor – this is likely not to be on the TV table and slightly more “winnable” for Iulian. I don’t see him win but I would love to see him compete
Kyren Wilson v Simon Lichteberg – Simon is fast improving, should be interesting
Louis Heatcote v Si Juahui
Yan Bingtao v Jak Jones
Zhao Xintong v Rod Lawler aka the Hare and the Tortoise
Judd Trump v Alex Ursenbacher
Shaun Murphy v David Grace
Aaron Hill v Peter Devlin
Scott Donaldson v Michael White
Aaaand … Lee Walker v Fergal O’Brien … but we’ll probably discuss that one next year.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 