The second annual Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters begins on Friday with a huge field of 144 in the 2025 draw at the Green Halls in Jeddah.
One of the richest tournaments ever staged on the World Snooker Tour, there is a mammoth top prize worth £500,000 on offer for next week’s champion.
In similar fashion to the World Snooker Championship, the top 16 seeds have been seeded through to the last 32 of the competition.
That includes the likes of world number one and defending champion Judd Trump, last week’s Shanghai Masters winner Kyren Wilson, and 2024 runner-up Mark Williams.
Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins, Mark Selby, Ding Junhui, Neil Robertson, Mark Allen, and Shaun Murphy are other marquee names in the 2025 Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters draw.
Dubbed the fourth major, all 144 players will compete at the venue with the field comprising almost all of the main tour professionals, top-up amateurs from the Q School rankings, and wildcards from the region.
Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters Prize Money
Winner: £500,000
Runner-up: £200,000
Semi-finals: £100,000
Quarter-finals: £50,000
Last 16: £30,000
Last 32: £20,000
Last 48: £11,000
Last 80: £7,000
Last 112: £4,000
Last 144: £2,000
147 Break: £50,000
Total: £2,302,000
What happened in last year’s event?
The inaugural Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters took place 12 months ago at the Green Halls in Riyadh, with Trump emerging as the first champion.
The Englishman prevailed from a titanic tussle with Williams, who missed what was effectively championship-winning ball in the deciding frame before watching his opponent clear the table for a black-ball triumph.
While there was plenty of glitz and glamour as one would expect from a sports tournament staged in Saudi Arabia, crowd attendances throughout the week were poor.
It’ll be interesting, then, to see whether a change in location to Jeddah will see ticket sales improve or not.
The inclusion of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters on the calendar has proved to be controversial, with many claiming that the event exists primarily for the Kingdom’s alleged practice of sportswashing.
There were times during last year’s edition, including overselling on the part of then host broadcaster Eurosport and a failure of anyone involved in the event to criticise the low turnout, when there was merit to these claims.
However, there can be no denying the positive impact that the event has on the World Snooker Tour in a financial sense.
Trump’s £500,000 haul can be matched only by the top prize given at the Crucible Theatre, and even the lower-ranked competitors can receive an important boost in revenue from the week’s play.
What is the format?
The format for the 2025 Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters draw is similar to the one adopted for both the World and UK Championships.
A tiered system means that players will enter the competition in staggered rounds based on their ranking position.
Those seeded from 81 to 144 meet in round one, with the winners advancing to play the competitors seeded from 49 to 80 in round two.
In round three, the players ranked from 17 to 48 join with round four similar to Judgement Day at the World Championship and the 16 qualifiers moving forward to play the top 16 seeds in the last 32.
The first three rounds are the best of seven frames before round four and five will be played over nine frames.
The length of matches increases to 11 frames for the last 16, quarter-finals, and the semi-finals, with the final then taking place over 19 frames.
What is the 2025 Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters draw?
Round 1 (bo7)
(Seeds 81-112 v seeds 113-144)
1. Florian Nuessle vs Dylan Emery
2. Liam Pullen vs Ahmed Aseeri
3. Robbie McGuigan vs Gao Yang
4. Leone Crowley vs Ziyad Alqabbani
5. Chatchapong Nasa vs Fahad Alghamdi
6. Kreishh Gurbaxani vs Reanne Evans
7. Zhao Hanyang vs Musab Sayegh
8. Jonas Luz vs Musaad Almisfir
9. Ross Muir vs Absulraouf Saigh
10. Mateusz Baranowski vs Lan Yuhao
11. Michal Szubarczyk vs Ryan Davies
12. Sam Craigie vs Xu Yichen
13. Sahil Nayyar vs Habib Subah Humood
14. Huang Jiahao vs TBC
15. Liam Highfield vs Mohammed Al Joker
16. Jiang Jun vs Hesham Shawky
17. Louis Heathcote vs Ayman Alamri
18. Iulian Boiko vs Liu Wenwei
19. Mitchell Mann vs Ashley Hugill
20. Ian Burns vs David Grace
21. Chang Bingyu vs Marco Fu
22. Ken Doherty vs Jimmy White
23. Connor Benzey vs Adeel Aqdus
24. Hatem Yassen vs Ng On Yee
25. Mohammed Shehab vs Abdullah Alotayyani
26. Oliver Brown vs Patrick Whelan
27. Mink Nutcharut vs Umut Dikme
28. Yao Pengcheng vs Alexander Ursenbacher
29. Fergal Quinn vs Mahmoud El Hareedy
30. Farakh Ajaib vs Saud Albaker
31. Steven Hallworth vs Omar Alajlani
32. Liam Graham vs Asif Mukhtar
Round 2 (bo7)
(Winners of R1 vs seeds 49-80)
33. Gong Chengzhi vs winner of match 1
34. Oliver Lines vs winner of match 2
35. Chris Totten vs winner of match 3
36. Aaron Hill vs winner of match 4
37. David Lilley vs winner of match 5
38. Liam Davies vs winner of match 6
39. Long Zehuang vs winner of match 7
40. Amir Sarkhosh vs winner of match 8
41. Ben Mertens vs winner of match 9
42. Ishpreet Singh Chadha vs winner of match 10
43. Bulcsu Revesz vs winner of match 11
44. Mark Davis vs winner of match 12
45. Jordan Brown vs winner of match 13
46. Cheung Ka Wai vs winner of match 14
47. Stan Moody vs winner of match 15
48. Antoni Kowalski vs winner of match 16
49. Sunny Akani vs winner of match 17
50. Zak Surety vs winner of match 18
51. Haydon Pinhey vs winner of match 19
52. Matthew Stevens vs winner of match 20
53. Scott Donaldson vs winner of match 21
54. Artemijs Zizins vs winner of match 22
55. Sanderson Lam vs winner of match 23
56. Wang Yuchen vs winner of match 24
57. Allan Taylor vs winner of match 25
58. Anthony McGill vs winner of match 26
59. Julien Leclercq vs winner of match 27
60. Liu Hongyu vs winner of match 28
61. Jamie Jones vs winner of match 29
62. Haris Tahir vs winner of match 30
63. Michael Holt vs winner of match 31
64. Duane Jones vs winner of match 32
Round 3 (bo7)
(Winners of R2 vs seeds 17-48)
65. Noppon Saengkham vs winner of match 33
66. Matthew Selt vs winner of match 34
67. Gary Wilson vs winner of match 35
68. Robert Milkins vs winner of match 36
69. Ben Woollaston vs winner of match 37
70. Jack Lisowski vs winner of match 38
71. Xu Si vs winner of match 39
72. Pang Junxu vs winner of match 40
73. Elliot Slessor vs winner of match 41
74. Lyu Haotian vs winner of match 42
75. Stuart Bingham vs winner of match 43
76. He Guoqiang vs winner of match 44
77. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh vs winner of match 45
78. Jak Jones vs winner of match 46
79. Ryan Day vs winner of match 47
80. Yuan Sijun vs winner of match 48
81. Lei Peifan vs winner of match 49
82. Jackson Page vs winner of match 50
83. Wu Yize vs winner of match 51
84. Robbie Williams vs winner of match 52
85. Daniel Wells vs winner of match 53
86. David Gilbert vs winner of match 54
87. Luca Brecel vs winner of match 55
88. Joe O’Connor vs winner of match 56
89. Stephen Maguire vs winner of match 57
90. Ricky Walden vs winner of match 58
91. Hossein Vafaei vs winner of match 59
92. Martin O’Donnell vs winner of match 60
93. Fan Zhengyi vs winner of match 61
94. Tom Ford vs winner of match 62
95. Jimmy Robertson vs winner of match 63
96. Zhou Yuelong vs winner of match 64
Round 4 (bo9)
(Winners of R3 play each other)
97. winner of match 65 vs winner of match 66
98. winner of match 67 vs winner of match 68
99. winner of match 69 vs winner of match 70
100. winner of match 71 vs winner of match 72
101. winner of match 73 vs winner of match 74
102. winner of match 75 vs winner of match 76
103. winner of match 77 vs winner of match 78
104. winner of match 79 vs winner of match 80
105. winner of match 81 vs winner of match 82
106. winner of match 83 vs winner of match 84
107. winner of match 85 vs winner of match 86
108. winner of match 87 vs winner of match 88
109. winner of match 89 vs winner of match 90
110. winner of match 91 vs winner of match 92
111. winner of match 93 vs winner of match 94
112. winner of match 95 vs winner of match 96
Round 5 (bo9)
(Winners of R4 vs Top 16 seeds)
Judd Trump vs winner of match 97
Ali Carter vs winner of match 98
Neil Robertson vs winner of match 99
Mark Selby vs winner of match 100
John Higgins vs winner of match 101
Zhang Anda vs winner of match 102
Shaun Murphy vs winner of match 103
Mark Williams vs winner of match 104
Kyren Wilson vs winner of match 105
Si Jiahui vs winner of match 106
Mark Allen vs winner of match 107
Ronnie O’Sullivan vs winner of match 108
Ding Junhui vs winner of match 109
Barry Hawkins vs winner of match 110
Chris Wakelin vs winner of match 111
Zhao Xintong vs winner of match 112
Round 6 (bo11)
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
Quarter-Finals (bo11)
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
Semi-Finals (bo11)
TBC vs TBC
TBC vs TBC
Final (bo19)
TBC vs TBC
Click here for the updated draw (snooker.org)
How to watch the Saudi Arabia Masters
There are several options available to watch the upcoming snooker live, depending on your location.
Below is a full list, as published on the World Snooker Tour website:
UK and Ireland
TNT Sports and discovery+
Mainland Europe
Eurosport and locally relevant streaming platforms
(discovery+ in Germany, Italy and Austria, HBO Max in all other markets)
China
Huya
Migu
CBSA-WPBSA Academy WeChat Channel
CBSA-WPBSA Academy Douyin
Hong Kong
Now TV
Philippines
Tap
Taiwan
Sportcast
Thailand
True Sport
Saudi Arabia
TBC
All other territories
WST Play
Featured photo credit: WST
Doherty and White meeting on the main tour for the first time since the Irishman defeated the Whirlwind 10-3 in the World Championship qualifiers. In all meetings, including seniors competition, Doherty leads 16-13. Cuetracker has strangely not included White’s 2020 World Seniors Championship final win where he came from 4-0 down to win 5-4.
Their most famous clashes include the 1992 Grand Prix final – Doherty’s first ranking final – which White won 10-9. The Londoner won their only Crucible meeting, a 1994 quarter-final, 13-10. Earlier that year, Doherty whitewashed White 5-0 at the Masters.
Dave Hendon commented recently that this latest meeting could establish a new record for the longest gap between the first and most recent clash of the same two players. It’s hard to think of anything that would exceed the 34 year gap.
No prediction contest for this event on Snooker.org. It may be due to Hermand’s views on taking snooker to Saudi Arabia. I’ve just recorded my best finish, placing tied 3rd in the contest for the Shanghai Masters.
You are correct.
Well done btw!
The likelier reason is the uncertainty of who the seeds will play in the last 32.