The 2026 Shanghai Masters will start in two weeks time and WST has shared the following information:

Shanghai Masters 2026 Draw

The draw for the 2026 Shanghai Masters has been made, with Kyren Wilson defending the title in the 24-player invitation event which runs from July 27th to August 2nd in China.

CLICK HERE FOR THE MATCH SCHEDULE AND DRAW¹

Wilson, who beat Ali Carter in the final last year, could face five-time champion Ronnie O’Sullivan in his opening match, if the Rocket can get past a local wild card in the previous round.

The top eight seeds, including world number one Judd Trump and World Champion Wu Yize, are seeded into the last 16, while the other 16 players start in round one. 

Chinese legend Ding Junhui needs to win his first match against a wild card to earn a tie with 2025 Crucible king Zhao Xintong.

Ronnie’s current ranking means that he enters this competition in round 1, whilst the top eight players start in round 2. It may actually be a good thing because he will play a less experienced opponent² first.

1. I have replaced the original link by the one on snooker.org pointing to the same information. This is because the WST link will disappear after a while, whilst the one on snooker.org will remain valid. ↩︎
2. On paper at least … the guys playing in the Chinese tour are no lambs for the slaughter, far from it ↩︎