Ding Junhui and O’Sullivan are absent from the main draw of the German Snooker Masters
China News Service, Beijing, January 29th: The main draw of the 2024 German Snooker Masters kicked off in Berlin, Germany on the 29th. 12 Chinese players advanced to the main draw, as well as Chinese players Xu Si and Hong Kong players who participated in the postponed qualifying round. Fu Jiajun will appear one after another. However, both China’s “No. 1 Snooker Brother” Ding Junhui and the World‘s “No. 1 Brother” O’Sullivan missed this event.
The 2024 Snooker German Masters qualifying tournament (128 out of 64) has ended a few days ago, but the qualifying tournament for the 8 seeded players has been postponed to the main draw. All 22 players with professional qualifications from the Chinese Legion have signed up to participate. Because their opponents are seeded players, Xu Si and Fu Jiajun will participate in the postponed qualifying match.
In this German Masters qualifying competition, 20 people from the Chinese Army participated in the competition, and 12 people advanced to the main competition, namely: Zhang Anda, Zhou Yuelong, Fan Zhengyi, Xiao Guodong, Tian Pengfei, Yuan Sijun, Si Jiahui, Pang Junxu, Peng Yisong, He Guoqiang, Xing Zihao, Liu Hongyu. Chinese billiards star Ding Junhui suffered an upset loss to Yuan Sijun, a young player born in 2000, in the qualifying round of the “Chinese Derby” and missed the main draw.
Also absent from this event is Ronnie O’Sullivan, who tops the world rankings. The World Snooker Tour officially announced a few days ago that O’Sullivan will withdraw from the 2024 Snooker German Masters “due to medical reasons” and will be replaced by Barry Pinches. At the same time, Iranian star Hussein Wafi and England veteran Martin Gould withdrew from the competition due to visa reasons and medical reasons respectively. Their opponents will directly enter the top 32.
The eight postponed qualifying matches of this German Masters will be held on the first day of the main event. 26-year-old Xu Si and 46-year-old Fu Jiajun will respectively face Sean Murphy and Mark Selby, who are ranked among the top eight in the world. The promotion situation is very serious.
The German Masters is a heavyweight snooker ranking event. The Chinese Legion has a good record in this event. Ding Junhui, Zhao Xintong, Fu Jiajun, and Yan Bingtao have all entered the finals of this event. Among them, Ding Junhui and Zhao Xintong were in 2014 and 2014 respectively. Win the championship in 2022.