Talented prospect Liam Davies will be playing in UK Championship qualifying (Picture: @Zheng Zhai)
The draw for the UK Championship qualifiers has been made, with every player outside of the world’s top 16 now having to qualify in Sheffield before making it to York.
The tournament has changed this year to the format used by the World Championship, with the top 16 heading straight to the Barbican and everyone else battling it out to join them there.
The lowest ranked players, and a handful of amateurs, come in at round one, with the winners taking on the next 32 players in the ranking, then the highest ranked 32 outside the top 16 come in at round three.
This means the likes of Stephen Maguire, Zhou Yuelong, Hossein Vafaei and Ali Carter only need to win two matches to make it to York, but those in round one must win four.
Highlights of the opening round include Stephen Hendry taking on Andrew Pagett, Jimmy White meeting new Brazilian pro Victor Sarkis, Liam Davies playing Alfie Burden and Marco Fu taking on Bai Langning.
Fu, coming off his fine run to the final of the Hong Kong Masters, has a very tough run just to get to the fourth and final round of qualifying, with Bai, Oliver Lines and Anthony Hamilton to come in his section.
The qualifiers run from 5-10 November at Ponds Forge in Sheffield, with a provisional format of play available here.
(Picture: WST)
Round one is played Saturday and Sunday, round two Sunday and Monday, round three on Tuesday and the final two rounds on Wednesdy and Thursday.
All matches are played over a best of 11 frames.
Round One Schedule
Saturday 5 November
9.30am
Duane Jones v Reanne Evans
Himanshu Jain v Peng Yisong
Alfie Burden v Liam Davies
Andy Lee v Rebecca Kenna
James Cahill v Liam Graham
Jimmy White v Victor Sarkis
Sanderson Lam v Amaan Iqbal
Andrew Pagett v Stephen Hendry
2.30pm
Michael White v Jake Crofts
Julien Leclercq v Mohamed Ibrahim
Chen Zifan v Farakh Ajaib
Ng On Yee v Jenson Kendrick
Lukas Kleckers v Lewis Ullah
Dean Young v Lee Stephens
Mink Nutcharut v Fergal O’Brien
Barry Pinches v Asjad Iqbal
7.30pm
Fraser Patrick v Ken Doherty
Oliver Brown v Ross Muir
John Astley v Robbie McGuigan
David Lilley v Joel Connolly
Ben Mertens v Martin O’Donnell
Dylan Emery v Adam Duffy
Zak Surety v Brad Ferguson
Si Jiahui v Allan Taylor
Sunday 6 November
9.30am
Michael Judge v Dechawat Poomjaeng
Ashley Hugill v Ryan Davies
Aaron Hill v Muhammad Asif
Marco Fu v Bai Langning
Sean O’Sullivan v Callum Beresford
Jamie O’Neill v Andres Petrov
Rod Lawler v Ryan Thomerson
Ian Burns v Anton Kazakov
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Hendry and Fu are in at round one.
