Finals Day Draw and Preview: 2024 Championship League Snooker Ranking Event

After 20 busy days of round robin action, the 128-player entry has been whittled down to just eight, and in this unique, short format, all of those remaining will fancy their changes of being the last cueist standing and pocketing what would be a top prize of £33,000.

• Tournament Results and Breaks
• Championship League Snooker Ranking Event: A Potted History

The eight contestants - who have all already won groups in both stages one and two of the tournament - have been split into two round robin groups of four, with exactly the same format as earlier in the event to be used.

However, at the end of the day, the group winners will then face each other in a best-of-five frames final to determine the overall champion.

Group 1

Mark Williams, Ali Carter, Scott Donaldson, Martin O’Donnell

Carter and Williams will be looking to add to their career ranking title tallies while Donaldson and O’Donnell each know they have a decent chance of collecting their maiden ranking crowns.

Scotland’s Donaldson - who won the invitational version of this event in early 2020 - eliminated World Champion Kyren Wilson during phase one. It is the first time he has made Finals Day; that’s the same case for O’Donnell, who is building on a brilliant 2023/24 campaign during which he returned to the pro circuit and reached his first ranking final at the Welsh Open in February.

Five-time ranking event champion Carter made Finals Day in 2021 where he narrowly missed out on the grand final after finishing second in his stage three group.

Now in his 33rd consecutive season on snooker’s top flight, Williams is on course for a third ranking title inside 12 months and a 27th overall.

The Welshman very nearly won this accolade last year when he reached the title match but was denied by Shaun Murphy, 3-0. Williams was also a finalist at the 2021 CLS invitational.

Group 2

David Gilbert, Jackson Page, David Lilley, Long Zehuang

From the four installments of this ranking event to date, there have been four different champions and eight different finalists.

Gilbert is the only former champion (2021) left in this year’s edition and he is likely to be the favourite to win this group as he looks to become the event’s first multiple-time title winner. He has an amazing record in the competition having progressed past the opening stage on all five occasions.

Continuing the excellent form that saw him make the Crucible semi-finals only a few weeks ago, the 43-year-old conjured up a memorable escape act in stage one when he had to win his final frame of the day and compile a break over 131. He did just that with a tournament-saving effort of 136 in a group where all six matches were draws.

The other three players in the pool could be just hours away from their first ranking title; all of them are appearing in Finals Day for the first time.

48-year-old Lilley is in the last eight of a ranking event for the second time in his career, whilst 27-year-old Long Zehuang - in his second season as a professional - is in uncharted territory. Both Lilley and Long lost their opening stage two matches but each followed up with a brace of victories as they went through with six points.

Prior to this year’s edition, the Championship League had been a largely miserable endeavour for Page having lost in stage one of each of the previous four years. However, the 22-year-old navigated the first hurdle this time around ultimately by virtue of a 127 break he made in his final match which put him through as he was level with Andrew Higginson on points and net frame difference, and because the duo had drawn their match 2-2.

It will be the second time in Page’s career that he will appear in the last eight of a ranker; in March he got to the semi-finals of the World Open.

Finals Day Order of Play

Group 1

From 12:00BST

• Mark Williams v Martin O'Donnell
• Ali Carter v Scott Donaldson
• Ali Carter v Martin O'Donnell

From 17:00BST

• Mark Williams v Scott Donaldson
• Scott Donaldson v Martin O'Donnell
• Mark Williams v Ali Carter

Group 2

From 12:00BST

• David Gilbert v Long Zehuang
• Jackson Page v David Lilley
• Jackson Page v Long Zehuang

From 17:00BST

• David Gilbert v David Lilley
• David Lilley v Long Zehuang
• David Gilbert v Jackson Page

The two group winners will then face each other in a best-of-five frames final