The draw for the 2025 World Seniors Snooker Championship as legends Jimmy White and Ken Doherty learn fate

The draw was conducted live on Channel 5’s The Jeremy Vine Show on Thursday morning with former world number three Neal Foulds and Vine pulling the balls from the bags.

Channel 5 will be live televising the World Seniors Snooker Tour’s premier event across the whole five days.

Over the past season, players from across the globe have been trying to qualify for the main draw via various routes, and there is set to be a cosmopolitan feel to the tournament with cueists from four different continents scheduled to feature.

What is the draw for the 2025 World Seniors Snooker Championship and how did it work?

Eight players were already seeded for the draw with their names fixed into the bracket. These were: Igor Figueiredo, Aaron Canavan, Dominic Dale, Joe Perry, Jimmy White, Tony Drago, Tony Knowles and Ken Doherty.

The other eight players were then randomly drawn against the seeds for round one.

Figueiredo was overjoyed when he won the crown for the first time in his career last year when he defeated Doherty 5-2 in the final.

The Brazilian will begin his title defence against England’s Wayne Townsend, who qualified via the seniors tour’s one-year list and is preparing for his debut on snooker’s grandest stage.

Following his qualification, Townsend said: “It’s the best day of my life, it doesn’t come much better than this. This is what you dream of as a snooker player ever since I started playing. It’s a dream come true.”

Four-time World Seniors Snooker Champion White - three of those title triumphs came at the Crucible in 2019, 2020 and 2023 - will face the winner of the ‘Golden Ticket’ event that takes place in Reading on the weekend of April 19 & 20.

No player other than White has won this title more than once.

Doherty has reached this final twice before, but is still aiming to create snooker history by becoming the first player to have won world junior, amateur, professional, and seniors championships.

The Irishman - who has a new cue - plays South Africa’s Charl Jonck, the reigning African Seniors Snooker Champion.

Multiple-time world ranking event winners Joe Perry and Dominic Dale are set to retire from the professional circuit after this season, but neither player is hanging their cue up just yet, as they have both accepted invites to this year’s seniors extravaganza.

Both will be making their seniors debuts and would play each other in the quarter-finals if they get past Brazil's Fabio Luersen (Pan American Seniors Champion) and England's Craig Steadman (European Seniors Champion) respectively in round one.

Winner of this title in 2018, Jersey's Canavan meets Andrew Norman - who nearly eliminated White in round one last year - while former world number two Tony Knowles shares the baize with Australia's Hassan Kerde, the current Asia-Pacific Seniors Champion.

Malta's quick cueman Tony Drago has impressed on his last two visits to the Championship reaching the semi-finals on both occasions. The former top 16 star is back and has been drawn against former World Games gold medallist Gerard Greene.

All matches in round one and the quarter-finals are the best of seven frames, the semi-finals are the best of 11, and the final is the best of 15.

The match schedule will be released soon.

It was recently announced that the World Seniors Snooker Championship will stay at the iconic Crucible until at least 2027 following a deal with Sheffield City Council and Sheffield Theatres.

Who has won the World Seniors Snooker Championship? List of finals and champions

The World Seniors Snooker Championship has found stability and consistency in recent years with the founding of the World Seniors Snooker Tour and support of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.

Since 2019, the Championship has been held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

1991: Cliff Wilson (Wales) 5-4 Eddie Charlton (Australia) | Stoke-on-Trent

2010: Jimmy White (England) 4-1 Steve Davis (England) | Bradford

2011: Darren Morgan (Wales) 2-1 Steve Davis (England) | Peterborough

2012: Nigel Bond (England) 2-0 Tony Chappel (Wales) | Portsmouth

2013: Steve Davis (England) 2-1 Nigel Bond (England) | Portsmouth

2015: Mark Williams (Wales) 2-1 Fergal O'Brien (Ireland) | Blackpool

2016: Mark Davis (England) 2-1 Darren Morgan (Wales) | Preston

2017: Peter Lines (England) 4-0 John Parrott (England) | Scunthorpe

2018: Aaron Canavan (Jersey) 4-3 Patrick Wallace (Northern Ireland) | Scunthorpe

2019: Jimmy White (England) 5-3 Darren Morgan (England) | Sheffield

2020: Jimmy White (England) 5-4 Ken Doherty (Ireland) | Sheffield

2021: David Lilley (England) 5-3 Jimmy White (England) | Sheffield

2022: Lee Walker (Wales) 5-4 Jimmy White (England) | Sheffield

2023: Jimmy White (England) 5-3 Alfie Burden (England) | Sheffield

2024: Igor Figueiredo (Brazil) 5-2 Ken Doherty (Ireland) | Sheffield