The 2023 Championship League Snooker (ranking) is the first event of the season, and although, at the time of writing the information has not been shared by WST or the on the CLS website, the players, and the press, have received the schedule and draw …
Luca Brecel will not be defending his Championship League title (Picture: Matchroom Sport)
The 2023/24 snooker season gets underway on 26 June with the Championship League, and while there are plenty of big names involved, a fair few have chosen to sit out.
Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump and Neil Robertson are all playing the event, which runs all the way until 21 July and the winner eventually walks away with £33,000.
However, reigning champion and new world champion Luca Brecel will not be in Leicester to defend the title, opting not to compete.
Also choosing not to play are the likes of Mark Selby, Jack Lisowski, John Higgins, Mark Allen and Ding Junhui.
There is no shortage of players ready to replace them, though, with amateurs filling up the groups, hoping to cause shocks over the summer.
Viaplay Extra will be showing the matches on Table 1 in the UK, while the event will also be streamed on betting websites and Matchroom.Live.
Championship League Snooker Draw and Schedule
Monday 26 June Group 3 Neil Robertson Liam Highfield Adam Duffy Ashley Carty
Group 30 Graeme Dott David Grace Daniel Wells Andrew Higginson
Tuesday 27 June Group 11 Hossein Vafaei Aaron Hill Martin O’Donnell Fergal Quinn
Group 21 Chris Wakelin Oliver Lines Anton Kazakov Liam Pullen
Wednesday 28 June Group 10 Ryan Day Michael White Himanshu Jain Jun Jiang
Group 22 Joe O’Connor Robbie Williams Zak Surety Alfie Davies
Thursday 29 June Group 5 Kyren Wilson Andy Hicks Asjad Iqbal Louis Heathcote
Group 29 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Elliot Slessor Victor Sarkis Florian Nuessle
Friday 30 June Group 6 Mark Williams Dylan Emery Ken Doherty Thor Chuan Leong
Group 27 Jordan Brown Julien Leclercq Marco Fu Barry Pinches
Mark Williams gets his campaign underway on 30 June(Picture: Getty Images)
Monday 3 July Group 16 Jimmy Robertson Ben Woollaston Liam Graham Peter Lines
Group 32 Xiao Guodong Martin Gould Alexander Ursenbacher Rory McLeod
Tuesday 4 July Group 15 Stuart Bingham Matthew Stevens Allan Taylor Duane Jones
Group 28 Anthony Hamilton Ben Mertens Ryan Thomerson Zihao Xing
Wednesday 5 July Group 17 Zhou Yuelong Ashley Hugill Oliver Brown TBA
Group 26 Jak Jones Jamie Jones Rebecca Kenna Dean Young
Thursday 6 July Group 7 Ali Carter Jackson Page Zehuang Long Ryan Davies
Group 24 Pang Junxu Wu Yize Hammad Miah Stan Moody
Friday 7 July Group 8 Robert Milkins Dominic Dale Muhammad Asif Alex Taubman
Group 23 Fan Zhengyi Sam Craigie Fergal O’Brien Ahmed Elsayed
Saturday 8 July Group 25 Si Jiahui Mark Joyce Mohamed Ibrahim Haydon Pinhey
Group 20 Matt Selt James Cahill Andres Petrov Sydney Wilson
Monday 10 July Group 1 Ronnie O’Sullivan Scott Donaldson Rod Lawler Alfie Burden
Group 19 Noppon Saengkham Mark Davis Jenson Kendrick Ross Muir
Ronnie O’Sullivan is due to be in action on Monday 10 July (Picture: Getty Images)
Tuesday 11 July Group 2 Judd Trump Xu Si Jimmy White Reanne Evans
Group 18 Joe Perry Jamie Clarke Andy Lee Stuart Carrington
Wednesday 12 July Group 4 Shaun Murphy Tian Pengfei Lukas Kleckers Andrew Pagett
Group 12 Barry Hawkins Zhang Anda Sanderson Lam Jamie O’Neill
Thursday 13 July Group 13 Dave Gilbert Yuan Sijun Sean O’Sullivan Ishpreet Singh Chadha
Group 31 Cao Yupeng Lyu Haotian Ian Burns Steven Hallworth
Friday 14 July Group 9 Gary Wilson John Astley Mink Nutcharut Hai Long Ma
Group 14 Ricky Walden David Lilley Peng Yisong Liu Hongyu
I have put the top 16 players in bold.
Obviously, I didn’t have time to actually study the draw but what strikes me is the number of Chinese players in it, including a few I don’t know anything about although I’m sure Lewis does… He Guoqiang who just earned his tour card via the Asia-Oceania Q-School isn’t in there though, but there is one spot still to be announced and, maybe, that one is for him provided he can get all the paper work done in time for the event. The highest ranked Chinese player, not currently suspended/banned, is Ding and he’s not in the draw, nor is Bai Yulu, who, I’m sure would have been a popular addition.
As usual, most high ranked Scottish players gave the event a miss: no Higgins, no Maguire, no McGill.
The 2023 BetVictor Championship League Snooker Ranking Event gets underway on Monday June 26th at the Morningside Arena, Leicester and the draw for the first group phase is now available.
The first ranking event of the 2023/24 World Snooker Tour season takes place over three stages in June and July. Neil Robertson will be among the players in action on the opening day, while other star names in the field include Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump, Shaun Murphy, Kyren Wilson, Mark Williams and Ali Carter.
Please note there is no access for fans at this event. However, wherever you are in the world, you can follow the action live online. Table 1 will be available on Viaplay Extra in the UK. Fans in Scandinavia, Baltics, Netherlands, and Poland will be be able to watch on Viaplay. The tournament will also be live on betting websites around the world, as well as on global OTT platforms and Matchroom.Live.
5 thoughts on “2023 Championship League Snooker (ranking) – Stage 1 Draw”
Looks like Neil Robertson isn’t skipping the opening events of the season, like the last few years.
Of course, I know all the players now on the tour reasonably well!
The missing player is probably a reserved place for the African champion, which is currently being determined in Casablanca. I’m very pleased to see Ispreet Singh Chadha is in the draw, which probably means he was fancying his chances in Bangkok. Apart from He Guoqiang, Manasawin (Quid) Phetmalaikul is strangely absent, even though he has a base in Darlington. By coincidence (?) Siripaporn (Baipat) Nuantakhamjan is also missing.
They are still calling this “The Ranking Version of the Championship League”, which is a bit of a mouthful and meaningless to those (maybe casual) viewers who don’t know what a ‘ranking tournament’ is. I wonder if they have thought about reducing the number of ‘dead matches’ or ‘dead frames’, and some situations where players are disincentivised towards the end of the day. You’d have thought they would want to present snooker in as clean as possible a way?
Incidentally, you’re missing a few lines from the near the top, including June 27, Group 11: Hossein Vafaei, Aaron Hill, Martin O’Donnell, Fergal Quinn.
Thans Lewis. Not sure how that happened but corrected now (i hope!)
It worked, but…
* Group 1 shows up twice, with different players.
* Group 2 is missing.
* Group 21 shows up twice, same players.
Thanks Grump. Group 2 wasn’t missing, it was there but named Group 1 again and that mistake was in the original article actually but I didn’t notice. The double Group 21 was entirely my fault … and the result of needing multiple “cut & paste”.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Looks like Neil Robertson isn’t skipping the opening events of the season, like the last few years.
Of course, I know all the players now on the tour reasonably well!
The missing player is probably a reserved place for the African champion, which is currently being determined in Casablanca. I’m very pleased to see Ispreet Singh Chadha is in the draw, which probably means he was fancying his chances in Bangkok. Apart from He Guoqiang, Manasawin (Quid) Phetmalaikul is strangely absent, even though he has a base in Darlington. By coincidence (?) Siripaporn (Baipat) Nuantakhamjan is also missing.
They are still calling this “The Ranking Version of the Championship League”, which is a bit of a mouthful and meaningless to those (maybe casual) viewers who don’t know what a ‘ranking tournament’ is. I wonder if they have thought about reducing the number of ‘dead matches’ or ‘dead frames’, and some situations where players are disincentivised towards the end of the day. You’d have thought they would want to present snooker in as clean as possible a way?
Incidentally, you’re missing a few lines from the near the top, including June 27, Group 11: Hossein Vafaei, Aaron Hill, Martin O’Donnell, Fergal Quinn.
Thans Lewis. Not sure how that happened but corrected now (i hope!)
It worked, but…
* Group 1 shows up twice, with different players.
* Group 2 is missing.
* Group 21 shows up twice, same players.
Thanks Grump. Group 2 wasn’t missing, it was there but named Group 1 again and that mistake was in the original article actually but I didn’t notice. The double Group 21 was entirely my fault … and the result of needing multiple “cut & paste”.