Scottish Open: semi-finals draw, preview, and schedule

The two semi-finals in the 2023 Scottish Open take place on Saturday at the Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh.

Just two more victories are required in order to capture the Stephen Hendry Trophy and the £80,000 winner’s cheque.

The defending champion and a home legend are in opposite sides of the draw, with a pair of players hoping to make their big breakthroughs also in the hunt for glory.

Let’s take a look at both ties in the Scottish Open semi-finals.

Gary Wilson vs Zhou Yuelong

Saturday, 1pm UTC

Reigning champion Gary Wilson was perhaps fortunate to emerge from some of his early-round encounters this week.

The Englishman needed deciding frames to settle his first three battles, but since then he has lost just one frame.

On Friday, Wilson thrashed Chris Wakelin 5-0, making breaks of 118, 96, 82, and 68(x2) in the process.

It had been a disappointing 2023/24 campaign before Scotland, but the 38 year-old is now guaranteed a spot at the World Grand Prix next month.

Wilson has risen to 32nd on the provisional one-year rankings, and every player behind him on the list is now out of the Scottish Open.

Zhou Yuelong will be the Tyneside Terror’s opponent in the last four after the Chinese cueist denied Stuart Bingham in a decider.

Zhou had appeared to be coasting when he orchestrated a 4-1 advantage, but the former world champion fought back to force a final frame.

A timely contribution of 70 from Zhou finally saw him move past the winning post, though.

Zhou and Wilson have played each other a handful of times, with the latter enjoying the superior head-to-head record.

However, most of those clashes were short affairs, and the only previous best-of-11 fixture that they played was at the same stage of the 2020 European Masters.

On that day, Zhou edged a dramatic showdown 6-5.

Noppon Saengkham vs John Higgins

Saturday, 7pm UTC

The evening bout on semi-finals day at the Scottish Open will feature home favourite John Higgins.

Higgins is the only member of the top 16 left in the tournament, and although he would never admit it publicly, he must quietly fancy his chances from here.

The Wizard of Wishaw has twice come within a victory of getting his hands on the Stephen Hendry Trophy – in 2016 and again in 2021 when he lost to Marco Fu and Luca Brecel in the respective finals.

To reach the same stage this year, Higgins will first have to overcome Noppon Saengkham.

It has been a season of consistency for the popular Thai, and he has firmly established himself as a member of the world’s top 32.

Yet like Zhou in the top half of the draw, Saengkham will have aspirations of etching his name onto ranking silverware for the first time.

This run represents the 31 year-old’s fifth to a ranking semi-final, and he has lost all of the previous four.

Saengkham has beaten Higgins four times from their ten prior meetings including at this tournament in 2020, albeit at a different venue.

The duo’s highest-profile duel materialised in last year’s World Championship, a second-round match in Sheffield that Higgins won 13-7.

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Scottish Open draw

Round of 128 (bo7)

Gary Wilson 4-3 Elliott Slessor
Xing Zihao 4-3 Fergal O’Brien
Joe O’Connor 4-0 Andy Lee
Scott Donaldson 4-3 Ashley Hugill
Hossein Vafaei 3-4 Daniel Wells
Rory Thor 4-1 Graeme Dott
Ryan Day 4-2 Jiang Jun
Ashley Carty 4-2 Andres Petrov

Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 4-2 Ma Hailong
Chris Wakelin 4-2 Mark Joyce
Yuan Sijun 4-0 Muhammad Asif
Mark Williams 3-4 Sam Craigie
Robbie Williams 4-1 Rod Lawler
David Gilbert 4-3 Jak Jones
Jordan Brown 4-2 Adam Duffy
Kyren Wilson 4-2 Mostafa Dorgham

Mark Allen 2-4 Jamie Jones
Dominic Dale 4-1 Ross Muir
Jimmy Robertson 4-2 Amaan Iqbal
Jimmy White 4-3 Duane Jones
Robert Milkins 0-4 Mark Davis
Andrew Higginson 4-3 Allan Taylor
Zhou Yuelong 4-0 Anthony Hamilton
Martin Gould 4-2 Reanne Evans

Manasawain Phetmalaikuk 4-2 Ben Woollaston
Stuart Bingham 4-0 Michael White
Aaron Hill 4-1 Ken Doherty
Jack Lisowski 4-0 Mohamed Ibrahim
Julien Leclercq 4-0 Baipat Siripaporn
Si Jiahui 4-3 Tian Pengfei
Zhang Anda 4-2 Andy Hicks
Judd Trump 4-0 Sydney Wilson

Liam Graham w/o Ronnie O’Sullivan
Ben Mertens 4-0 Ahmed Aly Elsayed
Sanderson Lam 4-3 Fan Zhengyi
Cao Yupeng 4-2 David Lilley
Barry Hawkins 3-4 Pang Junxu
Xu Si 4-0 Mink Nutcharut
Anthony McGill 4-0 Ryan Thomerson
Oliver Lines 4-0 John Astley

Lukas Kleckers 4-1 Stuart Carrington
Noppon Saengkham 4-0 Rebecca Kenna
Jack Borwick 1-4 Ishpreet Singh Chadha
Ali Carter 4-3 Long Zehuang
Alfie Burden 4-1 Ian Burns
Matthew Selt 4-1 Dylan Emery
Matthew Stevens 4-0 Victory Sarkis
Mark Selby 4-2 Sean O’Sullivan

Shaun Murphy 1-4 Liu Hongyu
Zak Surety 4-1 Liam Pullen
Lyu Haotian 4-2 Joe Perry
Jackson Page 4-1 Himanshu Jain
John Higgins 4-0 Oliver Brown
He Guoqiang 4-0 Peng Yisong
Ricky Walden 4-3 Hammad Miah
Alexander Ursenbacher 4-0 Wu Yize

Liam Highfield 4-0 Dean Young
Tom Ford 4-1 Louis Heathcote
Jenson Kendrick 4-2 Anton Kazakov
Ding Junhui 4-0 David Grace
Martin O’Donnell 4-2 Andrew Pagett
Jamie Clarke 4-2 Xiao Guodong
James Cahill 4-3 Stan Moody
Luca Brecel 4-0 Iulian Boiko

Round of 64 (bo7)

Gary Wilson 4-3 Xing Zihao
Joe O’Connor 4-1 Scott Donaldson
Daniel Wells 3-4 Rory Thor
Ryan Day 3-4 Ashley Carty
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 2-4 Chris Wakelin
Yuan Sijun 0-4 Sam Craigie
Robbie Williams 3-4 David Gilbert
Jordan Brown 0-4 Kyren Wilson

Jamie Jones 3-4 Dominic Dale
Jimmy Robertson 3-4 Jimmy White
Mark Davis 1-4 Andrew Higginson
Zhou Yuelong w/o Martin Gould
Manasawin Phetmalaikul 0-4 Stuart Bingham
Aaron Hill 4-1 Jack Lisowski
Julien Leclercq 2-4 Si Jiahui
Zhang Anda 4-2 Judd Trump

Liam Graham 4-2 Ben Mertens
Sanderson Lam 4-1 Cao Yupeng
Pang Junxu 4-1 Xu Si
Anthony McGill 4-2 Oliver Lines
Lukas Kleckers 1-4 Noppon Saengkham
Ishpreet Singh Chadha 3-4 Ali Carter
Alfie Burden 1-4 Matthew Selt
Matthew Stevens 3-4 Mark Selby

Liu Hongyu 4-0 Zak Surety
Lyu Haotian 4-0 Jackson Page
John Higgins 4-1 He Guoqiang
Ricky Walden 4-3 Alexander Ursenbacher
Liam Highfield 2-4 Tom Ford
Jenson Kendrick 1-4 Ding Junhui
Martin O’Donnell 4-2 Jamie Clarke
James Cahill 3-4 Luca Brecel

Round of 32 (bo7)

Gary Wilson 4-3 Joe O’Connor
Rory Thor 4-3 Ashley Carty
Chris Wakelin 4-0 Sam Craigie
David Gilbert 3-4 Kyren Wilson
Dominic Dale 4-1 Jimmy White
Andrew Higginson 2-4 Zhou Yuelong
Stuart Bingham 4-2 Aaron Hill
Si Jiahui 2-4 Zhang Anda

Liam Graham 3-4 Sanderson Lam
Pang Junxu 2-4 Anthony McGill
Noppon Saengkham 4-2 Ali Carter
Matthew Selt 4-3 Mark Selby
Liu Hongyu 2-4 Lyu Haotian
John Higgins 4-3 Ricky Walden
Tom Ford 3-4 Ding Junhui
Martin O’Donnell 4-2 Luca Brecel

Round of 16 (bo7)

Gary Wilson 4-1 Rory Thor
Chris Wakelin 4-2 Kyren Wilson
Dominic Dale 0-4 Zhou Yuelong
Stuart Bingham 4-0 Zhang Anda

Sanderson Lam 4-1 Anthony McGill
Noppon Saengkham 4-3 Matthew Selt
Lyu Haotian 2-4 John Higgins
Tom Ford 4-2 Martin O’Donnell

Quarter-Finals (bo9)

Gary Wilson 5-0 Chris Wakelin
Zhou Yuelong 5-4 Stuart Bingham

Sanderson Lam 3-5 Noppon Saengkham
John Higgins 5-3 Tom Ford

Semi-Finals (bo11)

Gary Wilson 6-5 Zhou Yuelong
Noppon Saengkham 6-3 John Higgins

Final (bo17)

Gary Wilson 9-5 Noppon Saengkham

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Featured photo credit: WST