Top 16 learn Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters opponents and hopefully bring crowds

The top players in the world will join the action at the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters on Tuesday and hopefully they will bring some fans with them.

By the end of Monday’s play there will be 32 players left in the draw in Jeddah, with the top 16 in the rankings beginning their campaigns against opponents who have come through the earlier rounds of the tiered draw.

The event started on Friday, with the fourth round coming to a close on Monday as 144 players are whittled down to 32, so there has been a huge amount of snooker played already, and some brilliant stuff in there.

Thepchaiya Un-Nooh knocked in a maximum in a win over Jordan Brown and followed it up with a brilliant 5-1 demolition of former Crucible finalist Jak Jones.

There have been multiple wins for some of the youngest players on tour, including the youngest, 14-year-old Michal Szubarczyk, and 16-year-old Lan Yuhao.

Reanne Evans has flown the flag for the women on the professional tour with back-to-back victories and there have been wins for players from countries as diverse as Canada, Ukraine, Brazil and Egypt.

Very few people have watched any of that at Green Halls, Jeddah, with most matches played in front of a handful of people or literally no one.

The tournament has been dubbed ‘the fourth major’ by World Snooker Tour and boasts a fantastic top prize of £500,000, but building support in Saudi Arabia is a process and we are very early on that journey.

Clearly with a relatively small fanbase in the area, people are more likely to wait for the big names to arrive on Tuesday before they turn up to watch and tournament organisers will be hoping that the arrival of the sport’s stars starts to fill some seats.

It has been an odd watch on television as players pull off brilliant shots and pot winning balls to complete silence in a pretty vast arena.

These are the rounds that would be seen as qualifiers in other events, so would never be likely to attract vast crowds, but an entirely empty arena is jarring viewing and one solitary person clapping a shot sounds daft.

It is also the case that the event boasts total prize money of over £2m, second only to the World Championship, so fans or not, the players are delighted that it is on the calendar and providing life-changing opportunity.

In Riyadh last year the crowds did start to build from the last 32 onwards, with Ronnie O’Sullivan’s games attracting healthy audiences and by the semi-final and final there were plenty of people in.

It will likely still be a slow burn outside of those games, but there is plenty to look forward to for the fans who do arrive at Green Halls.

Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters Round Five

Tuesday August 11

11am

Neil Robertson vs Ben Woollaston

Zhang Anda vs Stuart Bingham

Mark Selby vs Long Zehuang

Judd Trump vs Oliver Lines

Mark Williams vs Yuan Sijun

Ali Carter vs Gary Wilson

John Higgins vs Elliot Slessor

Shaun Murphy vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh

5.30pm

Ding Junhui vs Maguire/McGill

Mark Allen vs Chang/Gilbert

Zhao Xintong vs Hallworth/Zhou

Kyren Wilson vs Heathcote/Boiko

Chris Wakelin vs Jamie Jones/Ajaib

Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Lam/O’Connor

Si Jiahui vs Wu/Stevens

Barry Hawkins vs Vafaei/O’Donnell

Eight of the games in the last 32 have already been set, with defending champion Judd Trump set to take on his good friend Oliver Lines after impressive wins over Liam Pullen, Matt Selt and Noppon Saengkham for the Yorkshireman.

The in-form Un-Nooh has an eye-catching clash with Masters champion Shaun Murphy and last year’s runner-up Mark Williams meets rising Chinese star Yuan Sijun.

Ronnie O’Sullivan will take on either Sanderson Lam or Joe O’Connor, while newly crowned Shanghai Masters champion Kyren Wilson faces either Louis Heathcote or Iulian Boiko.

The final round four fixtures begin at 5.30pm UK time on Monday, as eight more players book their places in the last 32.