WST has published the draw for the 2023 Wuhan Open and the qualifiers format

Wuhan Open Draw

The draw for the new Wuhan Open has been made, with first round ties including World Champion Luca Brecel against China’s Xing Zihao, and former Crucible kings Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ken Doherty going head to head.

CLICK HERE FOR THE DRAW

CLICK HERE FOR THE QUALIFYING FORMAT

The qualifying round* will run from September 1-5 in Leicester, followed by the final stages from October 9-15 in the city of Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province.

The Wuhan Open will be the first ranking event staged in mainland China since 2019, and it will be one of three ranking events in China during the 2023/24 season, alongside the International Championship and World Open. These will follow the invitational Shanghai Masters, to take place in September.

Brecel’s match against Xing and O’Sullivan’s clash with Doherty will be held over to the final final venue, along with the matches involving the four local wild cards, as well as the top two ranked Chinese players. Ding Junhui will take on Ashley Hugill, while Zhou Yuelong has been drawn against World Women’s Champion Baipat Siripaporn.

Notable matches in the qualifying round include:

Iran’s Hossein Vafaei v Hong Kong’s Marco Fu
John Higgins v Dylan Emery
Mark Selby v Hong Kong’s Andy Lee
Judd Trump v Lukas Kleckers
Mark Allen v John Astley
An Australian derby between Neil Robertson and Ryan Thomerson
Shaun Murphy v Ben Mertens
Mark Williams v Andres Petrov

Details of how to watch the qualifying rounds will be announced soon.

Wuhan Open Prize Money
Winner: £140,000
Runner-up: £63,000
Semi-finals: £30,000
Quarter-finals: £16,000
Last 16: £12,000
Last 32: £8,000
Last 64: £4,500
High break: £5,000
Total: £700,000

There is an interesting change of format here with only the World Champion and the World Number 1 guaranteed to have their matches held-over at the venue. Other than the top Chinese players, the rest have to hope to be drawn against a wildcard. It’s probably a good idea as the first two days in China were often absolutely hectic and, of course, because the Chinese fans deserve to be able to watch “their ” players live.

Apparently WST definition for “Notable match” is basically that it features a top player. There are at least three matches in that list above that I see as totally uninteresting because they will almost certainly be heavily one-sided.