2024 UK Championship
 | |
| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 23 November – 1 December 2024 |
| Venue | York Barbican |
| City | York |
| Country | England |
| Organisation | World Snooker Tour |
| Format | Ranking event |
| Total prize fund | £1,205,000 |
| Winner's share | £250,000 |
| Defending champion |  Ronnie O'Sullivan (ENG) |
← 2023 | |
The 2024 UK Championship (officially the 2024 Victorian Plumbing UK Championship[1]) is an upcoming professional snooker tournament that is scheduled to take place from 23 November to 1 December 2024 at the York Barbican in York, England.[2][3] It will be the 48th edition of the UK Championship, the first triple crown and ninth ranking event of the 2024–25 snooker season.
Qualifiers will take place from 16 to 21 November 2024 at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester, England.[4]
Ronnie O'Sullivan is the defending champion, having defeated Ding Junhui 10–7 in the final of the 2023 event.[5][6]
Format
[edit]
The event will take place from 23 November to 1 December at the York Barbican in York, England.[2][3] The ninth ranking event of the 2024–25 snooker season (following the International Championship and preceding the Shoot Out) and first Triple Crown event, the tournament will be the 48th edition of the UK Championship, which was first held in 1977 as the United Kingdom Professional Snooker Championship. For the tournament's first seven years, only United Kingdom residents or passport holders were eligible to compete.[7][8] At the 1984 event, the UK Championship became a ranking tournament open to players of any nationality.[9][10]
The event uses a format adopted since the 2022 edition, which is similar to the format of the World Championship.[11][12] The top 16 players in the snooker world rankings are seeded through to the round of 32. An additional 128 players—comprising professionals ranked outside the top 16 and leading amateur players from the Q Tour and other amateur events—will compete in a four-round qualifying tournament from 16 to 21 November at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester, with higher ranked players given byes to the later rounds.[13] The 16 successful qualifiers will advance to the round of 32, where they will be drawn at random against the top 16 seeds.[11]
2021 winner Zhao Xintong, who served a 20-month ban from competing in WPBSA-sanctioned events until 1 September 2024 on match-fixing related charges, was confirmed to be among the amateur players invited as a WPBSA qualifier, by virtue of winning Q Tour Event 3 in October 2024.[13][14]
All matches are played as the best of 11 frames up to the final, which will be the best of 19 frames.[4][3] The defending champion is Ronnie O'Sullivan, who won his record-extending eighth UK Championship title in 2023, defeating China's Ding Junhui 10–7 in the final.[5][6]
Broadcasters and viewership
[edit]The qualifying matches will be broadcast by Discovery+ in Europe (including the United Kingdom and Ireland); starting from November 18, they will also be available worldwide (except for China) on World Snooker Tour's Facebook and YouTube channels and will be featuring live commentary on table one. Round 4 of qualifying, called "Judgement Day", will feature live commentary on roving coverage among all four tables on World Snooker Tour's Facebook and YouTube channels.[15]
Prize fund
[edit]The breakdown of prize money for the event is shown below:[16]
- Winner: £250,000
- Runner-up: £100,000
- Semi-final: £50,000
- Quarter-final: £25,000
- Last 16: £15,000
- Last 32: £10,000
- Last 48: £7,500
- Last 80: £5,000
- Last 112: £2,500
- Highest break: £15,000
- Total: £1,205,000
Main draw
[edit]| Last 32 Best of 11 frames | Last 16 Best of 11 frames | Quarter-finals Best of 11 frames | Semi-finals Best of 11 frames | Final Best of 19 frames | ||||||||||||||
| Ronnie O'Sullivan (ENG) (1)
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Xiao Guodong (CHN) (16)
| ||||||||||||||||||
| (9) | ||||||||||||||||||
| (8) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Mark Selby (ENG) (5)
| ||||||||||||||||||
| (12) | ||||||||||||||||||
| (13) | ||||||||||||||||||
 Mark Allen (NIR) (4)
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Judd Trump (ENG) (3)
| ||||||||||||||||||
| (14) | ||||||||||||||||||
| (11) | ||||||||||||||||||
 Mark Williams (WAL) (6)
| ||||||||||||||||||
 Luca Brecel (BEL) (7)
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Gary Wilson (ENG) (10)
| ||||||||||||||||||
| (15) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Kyren Wilson (ENG) (2)
| ||||||||||||||||||
Qualifying draw
[edit]| Round 1 (Last 144) 16–17 November | Round 2 (Last 112) 17–18 November | Round 3 (Last 80) 18–19 November | Round 4 (Last 48) 20–21 November | |||||||||||
| (81) | (80) | Jak Jones (WAL) (17) | ||||||||||||
| (112) | (49) | (48) | ||||||||||||
| (96) | (65) | Elliot Slessor (ENG) (32) | ||||||||||||
| (97) | (64) |  Stephen Maguire (SCO) (33) | ||||||||||||
| (104) | (57) | Jimmy Robertson (ENG) (40) | ||||||||||||
| (89) | (72) | Stuart Bingham (ENG) (25) | ||||||||||||
| (105) | (56) | Jackson Page (WAL) (41) | ||||||||||||
| (88) | (73) |  Hossein Vafaei (IRN) (24) | ||||||||||||
| (85) | (76) | Jack Lisowski (ENG) (21) | ||||||||||||
| (108) | (53) | Scott Donaldson (SCO) (44) | ||||||||||||
| (92) | (69) | Ryan Day (WAL) (28) | ||||||||||||
| (101) | (60) | Yuan Sijun (CHN) (37) | ||||||||||||
| (100) | (61) |  Thepchaiya Un-Nooh (THA) (36) | ||||||||||||
| (93) | (68) | Wu Yize (CHN) (29) | ||||||||||||
| (109) | (52) | Robbie Williams (ENG) (45) | ||||||||||||
| (84) | (77) | Barry Hawkins (ENG) (20) | ||||||||||||
| (83) | (78) | Tom Ford (ENG) (19) | ||||||||||||
| (110) | (51) | (46) | ||||||||||||
| (94) | (67) | Zhou Yuelong (CHN) (30) | ||||||||||||
| (99) | (62) | Matthew Selt (ENG) (35) | ||||||||||||
| (102) | (59) | Ricky Walden (ENG) (38) | ||||||||||||
| (91) | (70) | Noppon Saengkham (THA) (27) | ||||||||||||
| (106) | (54) | Dominic Dale (WAL) (43) | ||||||||||||
| (86) | (75) | David Gilbert (ENG) (22) | ||||||||||||
| (87) | (74) | Robert Milkins (ENG) (23) | ||||||||||||
| (107) | (55) | Xu Si (CHN) (42) | ||||||||||||
| (90) | (71) | Pang Junxu (CHN) (26) | ||||||||||||
| (103) | (58) | Anthony McGill (SCO) (39) | ||||||||||||
| (98) | (63) | Lyu Haotian (CHN) (34) | ||||||||||||
| (95) | (66) | Joe O'Connor (ENG) (31) | ||||||||||||
| (111) | (50) | (47) | ||||||||||||
| (82) | (79) |  Neil Robertson (AUS) (18) | ||||||||||||
References
[edit]- ^ "Victorian Plumbing Partners with Snooker's UK Championship". 7 November 2024. Archived from the original on 7 November 2024.
- ^ a b "2024 UK Snooker Championship". York Barbican. Archived from the original on 9 November 2024. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
- ^ a b c "UK Championship 2024". snooker.org. Retrieved 7 November 2024.
- ^ a b "UK Championship Qualifiers 2024". snooker.org. Retrieved 7 November 2024.
- ^ a b "Rocket captures eighth UK crown". World Snooker Tour. 3 December 2023. Archived from the original on 4 December 2023. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
- ^ a b Sutcliffe, Steve (3 December 2023). "UK Championship 2023: Ronnie O'Sullivan claims record-extending eighth title". BBC Sport. Archived from the original on 4 December 2023. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
- ^ "Chris Turner's snooker archive: UK Championship". 16 February 2012. Archived from the original on 16 February 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2023.
- ^ "UK Championship history". BBC Sport. 3 December 2001. Archived from the original on 31 October 2023. Retrieved 31 October 2023.
- ^ "UK Championship event history". World Snooker Tour. Archived from the original on 29 November 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2023.
- ^ "UK Championship". Snooker Scene. Archived from the original on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 31 October 2023.
- ^ a b "New format for snooker's Cazoo UK Championship". World Snooker Tour. 26 April 2022. Archived from the original on 31 October 2023. Retrieved 31 October 2023.
- ^ "Players criticise 'circus' format of UK Snooker Championship". Irish Examiner. 30 November 2013. Archived from the original on 31 October 2023. Retrieved 31 October 2023.
- ^ a b "WPBSA Qualifiers Announced for UK Championship". World Snooker Tour. 5 November 2024. Archived from the original on 9 November 2024.
- ^ Haigh, Phil (5 November 2024). "Zhao Xintong to play UK Championship in first pro event after ban from snooker". Metro. Archived from the original on 9 November 2024.
- ^ "Watch UK Championship Qualifying Rounds Live Online". World Snooker Tour. 5 November 2024.
- ^ "Victorian Plumbing UK Championship". World Snooker Tour. Retrieved 9 November 2024.