WST has published the draw for the 2025 Northern Ireland Open and the 2025 Xian Grand Prix Qualifiers

Monique Snooker

Here are the announcements:

2025 Northern Ireland Open

Baize Giants Set For Belfast As BetVictor Northern Ireland Open Draw Announced

The Waterfront Hall will once again host snooker’s greatest names in October as the BetVictor Northern Ireland Open returns to the heart of Belfast. 

Kyren Wilson will defend the title having beaten Judd Trump 9-3 in last year’s final. The draw has been made and it’s packed with the sport’s all-time greats and up-and-coming talents, including Wilson, Trump, World Champion Zhao Xintong, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, John Higgins, Mark Williams, Shaun Murphy and home favourite Mark Allen. 

The tournament runs from October 19-26 and the top 32 seeds will all play at the Waterfront Hall over the first three days (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday). They will be joined by the 32 players who come through the qualifying rounds in Leicester in September. Once the full field is confirmed the match schedule will be announced.  

Click here for the 2025 BetVictor Northern Ireland Open Draw

The qualifying rounds run from September 4-7. Robbie McGuigan and Fergal Quinn will go head to head in the first round, both hoping to make it to the final stages of their home tournament. For the match schedule click here.

Ronnie hasn’t entered the event. In a way, it’s a good sign as it’s consistent with his intention to only enter events where he wants to commit.

2025 Xian Grand Prix Draw

Xi’an Grand Prix 2025 Draw

Kyren Wilson will face Haris Tahir when he begins the defence of his Xi’an Grand Prix title in China in October.

Last year the world ranking event was staged for the first time in the historic city of Xi’an in China’s Shaanxi Province. Wilson beat Judd Trump 10-8 in a thrilling final and he will hope to defend the crown this year in the tournament which runs from October 7-13. The draw has been made and the matches held over to the venue are:

Chatchapong Nasa v wild card

Kyren Wilson v Haris Tahir

Ding Junhui v Sam Craigie

Ronnie O’Sullivan v Iulian Boiko

Gary Wilson v wild card

Chris Wakelin v wild card

Neil Robertson v Leone Crowley

Judd Trump v On Yee Ng

Mark Williams v Chatchapong Nasa or wild card

Zhao Xintong v wild card

Click here for the 2025 Xi’an Grand Prix Draw

All other first round matches, best of nine frames, will be played at the qualifying round at the Mattioli Arena in Leciester from September 1 to 3. Click here for the match schedule. Notable fixtures include:

Mark Selby v Gong Chenzhi

Ali Carter v Allan Taylor

Mark Allen v Mitchell Mann

Zhang Anda v Farakh Ajaib

Si Jiahui v Chang Bingyu

Shaun Murphy v Liam Highfield

Michael Holt v Jimmy White

Luca Brecel v Sunny Akani

John Higgins v Liam Pullen

Stephen Maguire v Bai Yulu

Barry Hawkins v Hatem Yassen

Hopefully Ronnie will actually commit and play in this one. His match is held-over, so he won’t be at the qualifiers1. Fingers crossed.

Also, Iulian Boiko is a good opponent for Ronnie, he plays an open game and likes to attack.

  1. Which he would hate … but, luckily, he’s being spared that. ↩︎

6 thoughts on “WST has published the draw for the 2025 Northern Ireland Open and the 2025 Xian Grand Prix Qualifiers”

  1. Also news in recent weeks were two CBSA events. In Qidong (near Shanghai), Wang Xinbo beat Ma Hailong 7-0 to win. He had already beaten Chen Feilong 5-1 in the semi-final. Ma Hailong beat Xing Zihao in the other semi-final 5-2. Chen Feilong made the highest break of 140, unfortunately missing the final black for a 147! Wang Xinbo produced a very impressive display, crushing all his opponents with brilliant potting and heavy scoring. At 17, he is a serious prospect and looks certain to qualify for the WST tour next season via the CBSA ranking list.

    Then yesterday, the CBSA City Teams event was completed in Shaanxi. This is always a very enjoyable event, kicked off by a speech from Lei Peifan, a local player. All 8 tables were streamed on Huya without any technical issues. The event was played in a very impressive arena, with decent sized crowds for the final two days.

    One of the biggest issues in world snooker currently is why can’t professional tournaments have such great venues and facilities as an obscure Pro-Am teams event in China?

    The Anhui team (Wu Yize, Xing Zihao, Chen Feilong) defeated Zhangjiagang (Chang Bingyu, Gao Yang, Ma Hailong) in the final 4-3, with a break of 68 in the deciding frame from Wu Yize. Earlier, Anhui had thrashed the local Yan’an team (Ding Junhui, Lei Peifan, Mei Xiwen) 4-0 in the semi-final. Altogether there were 32 teams (96 players), including 11 current professionals and 5 former professionals. Several of those players will be in Wuhan, and were probably using this as a warm-up.

    • Thank you for this report, Lewis. I watched the team event last year and it was very enjoyable indeed. This year, family visiting came in the way of snooker … but, of course, that was very enjoyable as well and only possible during the schools “summer break”. I can’t have it all he?

  2. In addition to the 3 usual players who are missing, Xiao Guodong has also not entered the Xi’an Grand Prix. This is something I was aware of – he isn’t intending to return to the UK until the end of the year (in time for the UK Championship). He would have to play a qualifier match. Missing 5 tournaments (especially the Saudi Masters) will very likely cost him his top-16 place, so he will also likely miss the Masters and Players’ Series events. We are beginning to see players pick and choose. This is especially true for overseas players with families. The tour structure (with UK-based qualifiers) is not working for them.

    Altogether that means there are 125 professionals in the Xi’an draw. With 4 local wildcards, this takes the total to 129, which means that one unlucky player (Chatchapong Nasa) has to play a ‘preliminary’ match. It used to be the case that the Invitational Tour Card holders would be first in line, but that rule seems to have disappeared.

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