Recently, Matchroom officially announced the signing list for this season's invitational version of the Champions League. A total of 6 Chinese players participated, of which Ding Junhui will play in the 6th group, and in the case of not many ranking matches available this season, choosing to use the Champions League to sharpen the state is a pragmatic choice. According to the previous official announcement, both O'Sullivan and Higgins will appear in the 7th group.
This season's invitational version of the Champions League will kick off in Leicester's Morningside Arena in December until the final winner is produced in January next year, with a total prize money of £205,000. The tournament follows the classic format, with a total of 25 players participating, and the group stage is played in seven rounds, and the seven group promoters form a winner group to determine the final champion.
In the group stage, every seven people will have a round-robin round-robin, the players ranked 6th and 7th in the group will be eliminated, the top 4 players in the group will enter the single elimination, the group champion will be in the winner group, and the 5th and other three players who fail to win in the single-loss stage will form a new group with the other three newly promoted players.
Currently, Matchroom has announced all 22 entries for the first 6 groups. According to the content of the previous official announcement of the first edition, O'Sulli and Wen and Higgins have also confirmed their participation and will join the 7th group. This means that at least 10 TOP16 players are participating in this tournament. The number of Chinese legions reached six, breaking the record of five in the previous competition.
Ding Junhui will appear in the sixth group, which is Ding Junhui's second participation in the Champions League since 2013 and will also become Ding Junhui's first match next year. Since then, Ding Junhui has also signed up for the Champions League. For a variety of reasons, Ding Junhui has only four qualifying tournaments left in the second half of the season (limited time, Welsh Open, Turkish Masters and Gibraltar Open), and choosing to use the Champions League to sharpen his form is a pragmatic choice.
Group 1 (20-21 December)
G. Wilson, G. Dot, J. Lisovsky, Liang Wenbo, T. Ford, Zhou Yuelong, R. Dai
Group 2 (22-23 December)
Zhao Xintong, Lu Ning, J. Perry
Panel 3 (3-4 January)
M. Selby, M. Williams, S. Bingham
Panel 4 (5-6 January)
J. Trump, B. Hawkins, K. Wilson
Group 5 (7-8 January)
M. Gould, A. Carter, D. Gilbert
Group 6 (17-18 January)
Yan Bingtao, Ding Junhui, Wharton