Order of play, match schedule announced for Tour Championship snooker at Manchester Central

Held at the Manchester Central between Monday 30th March to Sunday 5th April, the £500,000 world ranking event features 12 of the top 13 players from this season's one-year list.

Ronnie O'Sullivan qualified for the event, but elected not to enter, therefore the 13th-placed cueist from the seasonal standings - Mark Allen - received an invite.

The top four seeds all go straight through to the quarter-finals, with those seeded 5th to 12th playing in a preliminary round. All matches throughout the tournament are played across two sessions and the best of 19 frames.

Two tables will be in operation for the opening four days of the event. For the final three days - the semi-finals and final - only one table will be in the arena.

Monday and Tuesday will see the completion of the preliminary round. Helping break proceedings off in the afternoon session (from 13:00BST) will be world number one Judd Trump and Mark Allen - two highly-decorated exponents who have never won this Championship before.

Over on the other table are two players bang in form who won titles from their last engagements on the World Snooker Tour - Welsh Open champion Barry Hawkins, and World Open victor Thepchaiya Un-Nooh.

Thai ace Un-Nooh gatecrashed his way into this event from out of the blue following his heroics in Yushan.

For the evening's play, Trump and Allen return to conclude their tie, while Wu Yize and Chris Wakelin get theirs underway. Wakelin, along with Un-Nooh, will be making his Tour Championship debut.

On Tuesday afternoon, Hawkins and Un-Nooh play to a finish but the likely main attraction will be between two members of the fabled 'Class of 92' as reigning and defending champion John Higgins meets 2024 winner of this crown, Mark Williams.

Higgins and Williams finish their fixture later in the day, as do Wu and Wakelin.

Wednesday and Thursday is quarter-finals action in Manchester as the top four seeds enter the fray to face those whom emerged from the prelim.

Tour Champion in 2023, Shaun Murphy plays the winner of Trump v Allen in a contest that will be completed on the same day.

Number one seed Robertson - the only multiple-time winner of this title when he went back-to-back in 2021 and 2022 - shares the baize with either Hawkins or Un-Nooh across both afternoon programmes.

Reigning World Champion Zhao Xintong will be aiming to create history by becoming the first person to win all three Players Series events within the same season.

The current World Grand Prix and Players Championship title holder will be on duty during both evening sessions against either Chinese compatriot Wu, or Wakelin.

Runner-up here last year, reigning UK Champion Mark Selby is the final player to make his entrance as he gets going on Thursday.

It could be a repeat of last year's final between Selby and Higgins, although Williams will have a say about that.

The semi-finals are scheduled for Friday and Saturday; both sessions from the same match played on one day.

In the semi-finals it will be Robertson/Hawkins/Un-Nooh v Murphy/Trump/Allen and Selby/Williams/Higgins v Zhao/Wu/Wakelin.

For fans in the UK, the host television broadcaster will be Channel 5.

From the half-a-million pound prize fund £150,000 will go to the eventual champion.

This is the final professional event before the World Championship. Should Un-Nooh win this title, he would go back into the world’s top 16 rankings and be a seed player in the main draw at the Crucible Theatre.