The Snooker World Championship begins on Saturday the 18th of April. See the bracket and opening round matches here.
The Snooker World Championship sees it's first match begin at 10am UK time on Saturday the 18th of April. The traditional drawing of the bracket and opening round matches happened on Thursday at 9am, and you can find both here.
As is tradition, the first match of the World Championship will feature the reigning Champion. This year that honor belongs to China's
Zhao Xintong, who faces qualifier
Liam Highfield in the first round of the tournament.
Perhaps the biggest question mark of the tournament is
Ronnie O'Sullivan, who will face
He Guogiang in the opening round. Another interesting match is the clash between
Ali Carter and
John Higgins.
The second round of the World Championship could already bring our first heavyweight bout, as the aforementioned O'Sullivan and Higgins will end up facing each other if they both triumph in their opening round matches.
One of the most talked about players of the first round will be
Antoni Kowalski, who became the first Polish player to reach snooker's showpiece event. His 1st round matchup is against the experienced
Mark Williams.
Below is the complete bracket for the Snooker World Championship in 2026. On our site you can also find the complete match schedule for the whole World Championship and plenty of other information:
Snooker World Championship 2026 - Schedule, tv and results.
The first round matches of the Snooker World Championship will be best of 19 affairs, meaning that 10 frame victories are required to advance deeper in the tournament. In the second round and quarter-finals matches will be best of 25, the semi-finals are best of 33, while the final where the World Champion is decided is a gruelling best of 35 battle for the title.
Snooker World Championship 2026 bracket
Top half of the bracket:
Zhao Xintong (1) v Liam Highfield
Ding Junhui (16) v David Gilbert
Xiao Guodong (9) v Zhou Yuelong
Shaun Murphy (8) v Fan Zhengyi
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John Higgins (5) v Ali Carter
Ronnie O'Sullivan (12) v He Guoqjang
Chris Wakelin (13) v Liam Pullen
Neil Robertson (4) v Pang Junxu
Lower half of the bracket:
Kyren Wilson (3) v Stan Moody
Mark Allen (14) v Zhang Anda
Barry Hawkins (11) v Matthew Stevens
Mark Williams (6) v Antoni Kowalski
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Mark Selby (7) v Jak Jones
Wu Yize (10) v Lei Peifan
Si Jiahui (15) v Hossein Vafaei
Judd Trump (2) v Gary Wilson
