Change to the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters draw affects the world's top 16 players

The draw change affects the opening opponents of the world's top 16 players - including Ronnie O'Sullivan, Judd Trump and Kyren Wilson - who enter the competition at the last 32 stage on Tuesday.

This new £2.3 million ranking tournament - the most lucrative professional snooker event ever to be held outside of the United Kingdom - began with 144 players competing in a tiered draw system. This means that players enter the event depending on their world ranking position, therefore the lowest ranked players start in round one and the highest (the top 16) play their first match in round five. This is the same system used in both the UK Championship and World Championship.

The very busy opening three days at the Green Halls witnessed three rounds be completed and the field whittled down from 144 players to just 48. On Monday, there are 16 round four matches (best of nine frames) across two sessions, with the winners advancing to the last 32 where they will meet a plethora of the sport's biggest stars.

However, who these winners will face on Tuesday has now changed, due to the organisers noticing that the seeding positions in the draw from round five were incorrect.

In summary, if the highest ranked players from the opening four rounds were to advance to round five, in round five, the number one seed should play the number 32, number 2 v number 31, 3 v 30, etc. Basically, the highest seeded player in the latest tier of the draw should play the lowest seeded player from the preceding tier of the draw (if results went that way).

However, the original draw that was published a few weeks ago had the number 1 seed potentially playing the number 17 seed, number 2 v number 18, 3 v 19. This was incorrect.

It is important to note that matches in rounds one to four appear to have been formatted and played correctly - and with the World Snooker Tour rectifying the round five error for the last 32 onwards just in time - all players will face their correct opponents as per the seeding system.

The error occurred because whilst the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters uses the same tiered draw format as the UK Championship and World Championship, those latter two events have a random draw after round four to determine which ‘qualifiers’ the top 16 players will face. In this Saudi event - perhaps due to time constraints in completing the whole competition within nine days - the draw is predetermined solely by seeding positions from the start.

Although the correct matches have and will be played, players who are still in, now have a different route map to glory.

For example, Ronnie O'Sullivan was due to play the winner of Hossein Vafaei or Ben Woollaston - he now plays either Joe O’Connor or Lei Peifan.

Number one seed and current World Champion Kyren Wilson was preparing to face either Rory Thor or Jimmy Robertson, he'll now face the winner of Ashley Carty or Liu Hongyu.

World number one Judd Trump was perhaps getting ready for a meeting with good friend Jack Lisowski (if he defeated Martin O'Donnell in round four), but now he'll play either Stephen Maguire or Wu Yize.

The World Snooker Tour’s official statement on their website is here.

The new, correct draw for the 2024 Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters is here. In brackets is the player who the winner will play in round five (last 32) on Tuesday:

• Ashley Carty v Liu Hongyu (Kyren Wilson)
• Rory Thor v Jimmy Robertson (John Higgins)
• Thepchayia Un-Nooh v Chris Wakelin (Mark Williams)
• Anthony Hamilton v Stuart Bingham (Ding Junhui)
• Joe O'Connor v Lei Peifan (Ronnie O'Sullivan)
• Hossein Vafaei v Ben Woollaston (Zhang Anda)
• Graeme Dott v Si Jaihui (Tom Ford)
• Matthew Selt v Pang Junxu (Luca Brecel)
• Stephen Maguire v Wu Yize (Judd Trump)
• Jack Lisowski v Martin O'Donnell (Jak Jones)
• Jordan Brown v David Gilbert (Gary Wilson)
• Gong Chenzhi v Neil Robertson (Mark Selby)
• Noppon Saengkham v Yuan Sijun (Shaun Murphy)
• Zhou Yuelong v Elliot Slessor (Ali Carter)
• Scott Donaldson v Ryan Day (Barry Hawkins)
• Xiao Guodong v Lyu Haotian (Mark Allen)

For reference, the old, incorrect draw looked like this:

• Rory Thor v Jimmy Robertson (Kyren Wilson)
• Ashley Carty v Liu Hongyu (John Higgins)
• Anthony Hamilton v Stuart Bingham (Mark Williams)
• Thepchaiya Un-Nooh v Chris Wakelin (Ding Junhui)
• Hossein Vafaei v Ben Woollaston (Ronnie O'Sullivan)
• Joe O'Connor v Lei Peifan (Zhang Anda)
• Matthew Selt v Pang Junxu (Tom Ford)
• Graeme Dott v Si Jiahui (Luca Brecel)
• Jack Lisowski v Martin O'Donnell (Judd Trump)
• Stephen Maguire v Wu Yize (Jak Jones)
• Gong Chenzhi v Neil Robertson (Gary Wilson)
• Jordan Brown v David Gilbert (Mark Selby)
• Zhou Yuelong v Slessor/Pinhey (Shaun Murphy)
• Noppon Saengkham v Yuan Sijun (Ali Carter)
• Xiao Guodong v Lyu Haotian (Barry Hawkins)
• Scott Donaldson v Ryan Day (Mark Allen)