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.
What | World Grand Prix |
Where | The Centaur, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire |
When | Monday 16th - Sunday 22nd January 2023 |
How to watch | ITV4 & ITV Hub |
The World Grand Prix is a ranking tournament that has been a fixture of the calendar since 2015. It is part of the Cazoo Cup series, which also includes the Players Championship and Tour Championship.
The World Grand Prix begins on Monday 16th January and concludes on Sunday 22nd January.
For the third time the 2023 World Grand Prix will be held at The Centaur at Cheltenham following a two-year absence, when it was held in Milton Keynes and the Coventry Arena.
The World Grand Prix has also been staged at the Venue Cymru in Llandudno as well as Preston's Guild Hall.
The first World Grand Prix winner was Judd Trump in 2015 when he defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 10-7.
From 2017 onwards, the tournament became a ranking event and Trump and O'Sullivan have dominated the event.
The Ace in the Pack won in both in 2019 and 2020, while the Rocket took glory in 2018 and 2021.
Shaun Murphy was the 2016 victor, beating Stuart Bingham in the final, while a year later, Barry Hawkins got the better of Ryan Day.
The tournament was moved around the calendar, so there were two World Grands Prix in 2020 - Neil Robertson winning the second.
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.
Last year, Zhao Xintong was the number one ranked player, owing to his win in the UK Championship.
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.
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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.
The World Grand Prix will be available to watch on ITV4, as well as the ITV Hub.
Ronnie O'Sullivan is the number one ranked player in the world with his prize money for the past two years just about exceeding £1million.
Australian left-hander Robertson is second, with Trump third and Selby fourth and John Higgins and Mark Williams rounding out the top six.
The four ranked tournaments already completed this season have produced four different champions.
Belgian Luca Brecel kicked off the season with a win in the Championship League, before Kyren Wilson took the honours at the European Masters.
Day edged out Mark Allen to win the British Open, but Allen then scooped the next prize, winning his home Northern Ireland Open for a second successive year.
In terms of non-ranking events, Neil Robertson and Mink Nutcharut won the World Mixed Doubles, while O'Sullivan claimed victory in both the Hong Kong Masters and Champion of Champions.
There is still some time to go before the World Grand Prix gets under way with the 2023 Masters set to be played first in January.
In November, Mark Allen made a surprise comeback to beat Ding Junhui 10-7 and take the UK Championship title after trailing 6-1 following the afternoon session.
Meanwhile Mark Selby secured victory in the English Open final against Luca Brecel, while Gary Wilson beat Joe O’Connor 9-2 to win the Scottish Open.
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