Champion of Champions draw revealed as title holders set for baize battle in Leicester

The line-up for this year's edition was confirmed earlier this week, with all 16 contestants having qualified by virtue of winning an event on the snooker scene within the past 12 months.

Action takes place at a new host venue for the prestigious invitational, the Mattioli Arena in Leicester between November 10-16. For fans in the UK, the event will be televised live on ITV4.

Having never previously won a match in the competition before, Welshman Williams went all the way in 2024, defeating debutant Xiao Guodong 10-6 in the final to collect the £150,000 top prize.

That triumph would have been enough for Williams to make the grade for this year's staging, but the three-time world champion 'double qualified' when he won the Xi'an Grand Prix in China last month, a memorable success that saw him become professional snooker's oldest-ever ranking event champion.

Williams has not played competitively since that Xi'an glory, withdrawing from the subsequent Northern Ireland Open, and International Championship - the latter due to a respiratory infection - but hopes to back on the baize in Leicester to defend his crown.

After some confusion and controversy around the qualification criteria that initially left him out, Williams’ opening round opponent Burden is in the tournament after all.

The Champion of Champions format is essentially a 16-player straight knockout event, although over the first four days, sections of the draw are completed with two round one matches (best of seven frames) in the afternoon, with the winners of those ties returning that evening to play a best of 11 frames quarter-final. Organisers Matchroom Multisport label these sections as groups.

Alongside Williams and Burden in Group One are Mark Selby and Stephen Maguire who will face each other in a repeat of the Welsh Open final earlier this year. Maguire is back in the Champion of Champions for the first time since 2021; the Scot got in by winning the Championship League Ranking Event in the summer.

In Group Two at the bottom of the overall draw bracket, 2021 champion Judd Trump - who has reached a further four Champion of Champions finals - meets reigning back-to-back world women's champion Bai Yulu, who returns for a second successive year.

Current Masters and British Open champion Shaun Murphy - winner of this event in 2017 - shares the baize with Scottish Open champion Lei Peifan.

Reigning world champion Zhao Xintong will prepare for his second appearance in this competition, and the Chinese superstar is up against Mark Allen.

Northern Irishman Allen has a very impressive Champion of Champions record having lifted the trophy twice (2020, 2023), been runner-up in 2015, and made a further four semi-finals.

Elsewhere in Group Three, it's world number two Kyren Wilson against newly-minted Northern Ireland Open champion Jack Lisowski. En route to glory in Belfast, Lisowski dethroned then title holder Wilson in the last eight.

The final group features two former champions; two-time winner (2015, 2019) Neil Robertson plays Shoot Out champion Tom Ford while 2016 victor John Higgins faces last year's runner-up Xiao Guodong.

A quarter of this year's field are debutants: Burden, Lei, Lisowski and Ford, and they are all in different groups.

The order of play for the 2025 Champion of Champions has yet to be made and probably won't be available until only a few days before with many of the players in the Far East for the International Championship which finishes the day before action breaks off at the Mattioli.