Higgins To Be Seeded At Champion of Champions

With the penultimate qualifying event – the International Championship – concluding this weekend in China, Matchroom Sport can announce that the final seeded player for the Champion of Champion will be Scotland’s John Higgins.

The current World No. 12 is the highest ranked player already qualified and will take his place in Group One alongside Joe Perry. Currently Ding Junhui is the 16th and final player in the Champion of Champions but that could all change if Thepchaiya Un-Nooh or David Gilbert were to win the International. Failing that eventuality, a new winner at next week’s Bulgarian Open could sneak in ahead of Ding.

The 2015 Champion of Champions takes place at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry from 10th to 15th November and features previous winners of World Snooker-sanctioned events over the previous 12 months.

The eight seeded players are Stuart Bingham, Judd Trump, John Higgins, Joe Perry, Neil Robertson, Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby and Barry Hawkins. The unseeded players are Michael White, Stephen Maguire, Kyren Wilson, Zhou Yuelong, Yan Bingtao, Ali Carter and Rory McLeod. They will be joined by Ding Junhui provided there is not a new winner at the International or Bulgarian Open.

Each seeded player will play an unseeded opponent in a best-of-seven group match in the afternoon session with the two winners clashing over 11 frames in the evening. The four group winners will proceed to the best-of-11 semi-finals on Saturday, November 14 before Sunday, November 15 sees a two-session final played over 19 frames.

Ali Carter

Group Fixtures

Tuesday November 10, Group 3 (first match at 1pm)
Stuart Bingham (3) v To Be Drawn
Judd Trump (6) v To Be Drawn

Wednesday, November 11, Group 1 (first match at 1pm)
John Higgins v To Be Drawn
Joe Perry (8) v To Be Drawn

Thursday, November 12, Group 4 (first match at 1pm)
Neil Robertson (4) v To Be Drawn
Shaun Murphy (5) v To Be Drawn

Friday, November 13, Group 2 (first match at 1pm)
Mark Selby (2) v To Be Drawn
Barry Hawkins (7) v To Be Drawn

Tickets for this year’s Champion of Champions are now on sale at The Ticket Factory from just £10. Standard priced tickets for the weekend sessions are now sold out, but in anticipation of extra seats being released a waiting list has been set up at http://www.championofchampionssnooker.co.uk/tickets/.

The participation of all players is subject to contract.

Hawkins Rules In Riga

Barry Hawkins won the first Kreativ Dental Clinic European Tour event of the season, beating Tom Ford 4-1 in the final of the Kaspersky Lab Riga Open.

World number eight Hawkins captured his first title since the Players Championship 16 months ago by winning seven straight matches in the Latvian capital. The former Crucible finalist pocketed the top prize of 25,000 Euros.

In the final, Leicester’s Ford took the opening frame with a break of 67, before Ditton-based Hawkins levelled with a run of 65. He crucially won the third frame on the colours and then added the next two with top runs of 57 and 62.

Hawkins recently admitted that he decided not to enter the Australian Goldfields Open – the first ranking event of the campaign – in order to give himself fresh impetus for the season ahead, and his victory in Riga has clearly justified that decision.

“It feels great to win my first tournament of the season,” said the 36-year-old. “I had two months off and put my cue away. I made the most of the break and it seems to have paid off.

“Tom is a class player who scores well when he gets going so I was pleased to beat him. It was a strong field with a lot of good players. If I can keep this form up I’ll have chances to win more titles.”

Barry Hawkins photo credit DerHexer
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Earlier in the semi-finals, Hawkins beat Graeme Dott 4-1 while Ford saw off Ben Woollaston by the same scoreline.

The Kreativ Dental Clinic European Tour is a series of six events across the continent, with the top 24 on the final Order of Merit to qualify for the Players Championship. The next event is the Paul Hunter Classic in Germany from August 26-30.

Results (last 16 onwards)

Last 16
Ryan Day 4-1 Ken Doherty
Graeme Dott 4-1 Mark Allen
Barry Hawkins 4-1 Michael White
Alan McManus 4-1 Judd Trump
Matthew Selt 4-1 Shaun Murphy
Tom Ford 4-2 Rory McLeod
Ben Woollaston 4-2 Mark Williams
Liang Wenbo 4-0 Oliver Lines

Quarter-finals
Dott 4-0 Day
Hawkins 4-2 McManus
Ford 4-3 Selt
Woollaston 4-2 Liang

Semi-finals
Hawkins 4-1 Dott
Ford 4-1 Woollaston

Final
Hawkins 4-1 Ford