Today is the start of the 2021 Tournament of The World Championship Qualifiers which is the second of Snooker’s Triple Crowns in 2021.
The current reigning tournament Champion is Ronnie O’Sullivan who will be looking to retain the title as he will be looking to not only lift the Trophy again in 2021 which means he will equal Stephen Hendry’s record of seven wins plus the cheque for £500,000.
In addition to the tournament prize fund the WST and WPBSA have agreed to provide a prize of £40,000 for a 147 made at the Crucible this year during the Betfred World Championship, and £10,000 for a maximum made during the qualifying rounds which starts today . These bonuses are on top of the £15,000 high break prize which will apply throughout the whole event for 2021.
From today we see 128 players competing during the qualification rounds , which will take place until the April 14th at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. Players will be competing in the best of 11 rounds .
With the first set of 24 players we also welcome back Stephen Hendry to the tournament who was competing this evening 7.30 pm against Jimmy White . We also saw Reanne Evans compete against Andy Hicks today .
Rebecca Kenna is also competing in the qualifiers in tomorrow evening matches against Brandon Sargeant .
The reigning Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan is the only player with a guaranteed place in the first round.
Once the qualifiers are finished we then see the main tournament move to the Crucible which commences on April 17th with the Finals on May 3rd . A total 16 of these players will reach the first round where they will be joined by the 16 top players in the snooker rankings.
Here is a full breakdown on todays matches with Oliver Lines at the top of the centuries leader board with his 134 score over Dylan Emery .
| Zak Surety | 4 | v | 6 | Fan Zhengyi |
| Oliver Lines | 6 | v | 1 | Dylan Emery |
| Andy Hicks | 6 | v | 2 | Reanne Evans |
| Zhao Jianbo | 6 | v | 3 | Ross Muir |
| Fraser Patrick | 6 | v | 4 | Leo Fernandez |
| Barry Pinches | 0 | v | 6 | Jamie Wilson |
| Gao Yang | 6 | v | 3 | Paul S Davison |
| Soheil Vahedi | 5 | v | 6 | Julien Leclercq |
| Jimmy White | 3 | v | 6 | Stephen Hendry |
| Billy Joe Castle | 6 | v | 3 | Connor Benzey |
| David Lilley | w/o | v | … | Amine Amiri |
| James Cahill | 6 | v | 1 | Sean Maddocks |
It all commences again tomorrow at 9.30am.
