The 2025 Tour Championship commences on Monday in Manchester with the 12 best players from this season in the draw.
It’s the penultimate ranking event of the 2024/25 snooker season, and the last tournament on the Players Series of competitions where qualification is based on the one-year rankings.
Neil Robertson triumphed at the 32-player World Grand Prix at the start of March before Kyren Wilson won last week’s 16-strong Players Championship.
Robertson and Wilson will be among the star names who are battling it out for the ยฃ150,000 top prize at the Manchester Central this week.
2025 Tour Championship Prize Money
Champion: ยฃ150,000
Runner-up: ยฃ60,000
Semi-Finals: ยฃ40,000
Quarter-Finals: ยฃ30,000
Round of 12: ยฃ20,000
Highest Break: ยฃ10,000
Total: ยฃ500,000
Who is in the 2025 Tour Championship draw?
Questionable planning by the World Snooker Tour resulted in all three events on the Players Series being scheduled back-to-back on this season’s calendar.
It has led to a lack of variety in the prestigious events that are leading up to the campaign-concluding World Snooker Championship.
The 2025 Tour Championship draw features four fewer players compared to last week’s Players Championship.
Yet many of the match-ups remain the same as the specific seeding positions for each event barely changed.
Indeed, all four first-round ties mimic fixtures from the recent outing in Telford.
Once again, Mark Williams will play Ding Junhui with the Welshman this time set to sport contact lenses in an effort to abate his ailing eyesight issues.
Williams, who turned 50 in March, is the reigning Tour Championship winner and would become the oldest ever ranking event winner by two days if he could successfully defend his crown.
Mark Selby has a repeat contest with Si Jiahui and Shaun Murphy will entertain Barry Hawkins once more.
The all-Chinese battle between Xiao Guodong and Wu Yize arguably provides the most intrigue at the early stage of the competition.
Xiao edged his countryman 6-5 at the Players Championship, but Wu will be hoping to enact a modicum of revenge en route to securing a last-gasp automatic spot at the Crucible Theatre.
The 21 year-old is the last player currently outside the world’s top 16 who could still break into the crucial bracket on the official two-year list before Sheffield, and therefore avoid the dreaded World Championship qualifiers.
Wu not only needs to beat Xiao, but he also must go all the way to the final if he is to displace Jak Jones in the World Championship first-round draw.
Kyren Wilson and Neil Robertson, meanwhile, are among the top four seeds who are automatically through to the quarter-finals of the 2025 Tour Championship draw.
World number one Judd Trump, who was beaten 10-9 by Wilson in an exciting final in Telford last week, and rejuvenated World Open winner John Higgins are the others safely into the last eight.
Every encounter at the Tour Championship will take place over 19 frames.
2025 Tour Championship draw
Times in UTC+1
Round of 12 (bo19)
Shaun Murphy vs Barry Hawkins
(Monday at 1pm and 7pm)
Xiao Guodong vs Wu Yize
(Monday at 1pm and Tuesday at 1pm)
Mark Selby vs Si Jiahui
(Tuesday at 1pm and 7pm)
Mark Williams vs Ding Junhui
(Monday at 7pm and Tuesday at 7pm)
Quarter-Finals (bo19)
Judd Trump vs Murphy/Hawkins
(Wednesday at 1pm and 7pm)
John Higgins vs Xiao/Wu
(Wednesday at 1pm and Thursday at 1pm)
Neil Robertson vs Selby/Si
(Wednesday at 7pm and Thursday at 7pm)
Kyren Wilson vs Williams/Ding
(Thursday at 1pm and 7pm)
Semi-Finals (bo19)
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
Matches to be played on Friday and Saturday at 1pm and 7pm. Schedule to be confirmed.
Final (bo19)
TBC vs TBC
Match to be played on Sunday, April 6th at 1pm and 7pm.
Click here for updated scores and results
(snooker.org)
How to watch
There are several options available to watch the 2025 Tour Championship this year. The full list of global broadcasters:
UK
ITV
Ireland
ITV
TNT Sports
Mainland Europe
Eurosport and locally relevant streaming platforms (discovery+ in Germany, Italy, and Austria; MAX in all other markets)
China
Huya.com
Migu
CBSA-WPBSA Academy WeChat Channel
CBSA-WPBSA Academy Douyin
Hong Kong China
Now TV
Malaysia and Brunei
Astro
Philippines
Tap
Taiwan
Sportcast
Thailand
True Sport
All other territories
WST Play
Featured photo credit: WST
I would agree with the point questioning the sense in scheduling these tournaments in sequence! It does create quite a dull period for the tour as a whole as well as creating repetitive matches.