The 2014 Dafabet World Snooker Championship
19 April to 5 May
at The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield.
Ronnie O'Sullivan returns to the Crucible on Saturday to start the defence of his World Snooker title. Not only that, he's here to go for a third consecutive title, a feat not achieved since Stephen Hendry made it five in a row in 1996.
His opponent in the first round will be Robin Hull, a 39 year old Finn who will be making only his second appearance at the Crucible. His first was in 2002 when he lost in the first round to Graeme Dott. He has come through all four qualifying rounds this week, so comes into this match on a high, particularly after knocking out former champion, Peter Ebdon, in the final round.
A lot of people's favourite this year, apart from the Rocket, will be Ding Junhui, who has been in great form recently and has already won five tournaments this season. He starts off with a match with Michael Wasley, who knocked out world number 16, Robert Milkins, in qualifying. Milkins was the unlucky one of the top 16 who had to make way for the world number 33, who just happens to be the defending champion and gets in automatically.
O'Sullivan is seeded 1. The number 2 seed is the world number 1, Neil Robertson. He heads the names in the bottom half of the draw and he plays newcomer, Robbie Williams in the first round.
Williams is one of four debutants this year. Wasley is one of them. The other two are Kyren Wilson and Xiao Guodong.
Play starts at 10:00 on Saturday morning and is live on BBC2 (as well as Eurosport for those who have it).
First round draw:-
Ronnie O'Sullivan [1] v Robin Hull
Joe Perry [16] v Jamie Burnett
Shaun Murphy [6] v Jamie Cope
Marco Fu [8] v Martin Gould
Barry Hawkins [5] v Dave Gilbert
Ricky Walden [11] v Kyren Wilson
Mark Davis [13] v Dominic Dale
Ding Junhui [3] v Michael Wasley
Mark Selby [4] v Michael White
Ali Carter [12] v Xiao Guodong
John Higgins [10] v Alan McManus
Stuart Bingham [7] v Ken Doherty
Judd Trump [9] v Tom Ford
Stephen Maguire [14] v Ryan Day
Mark Allen [15] v Michael Holt
Neil Robertson [2] v Robbie Williams