The first snooker tournament to take place following the Masters is the World Grand Prix and here is all you need to know about the January ranking event.
The World Grand Prix is a ranking tournament that has been a fixture of the calendar since 2015. It is part of the Players Series, which also includes the Players Championship and Tour Championship.
This year’s World Grand Prix begins on Monday 15th January, 2024 and runs until Sunday 21st January when the final takes place.
A number of venues have had the honour of staging the World Grand Prix since the tournament’s inception in 2015, with the Venue Cymru in Llandudno hosting the first two editions.
The Centaur in Cheltenham has also staged the event on multiple occasions, doing so for the third time in 2023, while Preston’s Guild Hall was the tournament’s home in both 2017 and 2018.
The Coventry Arena in Coventry and the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes have hosted the tournament once apiece, while in 2024 the World Grand Prix will be held at Leicester’s Morningside Arena for the first time.
The World Grand Prix will be available to watch on ITV4, as well as on ITVX.
The first World Grand Prix winner was Judd Trump in 2015 when he defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 10-7 in what was then a non-ranking event.
Since 2016 ranking points have been available and Trump is the record three-time winner, adding to his 2015 triumph with successes in 2019 and late 2020 (the tournament was held twice that year).
This season’s UK Championship and Masters champion Ronnie O’Sullivan is the only other multiple winner of the event, lifting the trophy twice in 2018 and 2021.
Shaun Murphy, Barry Hawkins and Neil Robertson have all claimed World Grand Prix glory once, while Mark Allen is the defending champion, having beaten Trump in the 2023 final.
As it stands, there are 32 entrants to the World Grand Prix and it is based on one-year rankings, as opposed to the two-year order of merit which makes up the overall world rankings.
It includes all ranking tournaments that season up to the first day of the World Grand Prix.
It is a fixed bracket draw, so the number one plays 32, two plays 31 and so on.
The first two rounds are best of seven frames, before it goes best of nine in the quarter-finals and best of 11 in the semis. The final is played over 19 frames.
The winner will receive a cheque of £100,000 making it one of the most lucrative events outside the Triple Crown.
The runner-up will get £40,000. There is a high-break prize of £10,000 and just getting into the 32-player field will earn competitors £5,000. Overall, £380,000 is available in prize money.
Unsurprisingly after claiming his second Triple Crown success of the season at the Masters, two-time World Grand Prix winner O’Sullivan is the 7/2 favourite to land the title. The Rocket will face Pang Junxu in the first round.
Trump, who is the number one seed in Leicester, is priced at 4/1 to land his fourth title of the season, while Mark Selby (7/1) and defending champion Allen (11/1) are also considered strong contenders.
The other players that are heading into the tournament with outright odds of under 20/1 are John Higgins (14/1), Shaun Murphy (14/1), Mark Williams (14/1), Ding Junhui (14/1) and Barry Hawkins (16/1),
Any odds displayed were correct at the time of writing and are subject to fluctuation.