Riyadh Season Snooker Championship 2024 | Day Two Preview and Order of Play

Ronnie O’Sullivan begins his Riyadh Season Snooker Championship title defence with a mouth-watering clash against Ding Junhui on Thursday.

The quarter-finals take centre stage at Boulevard City in Riyadh, with fans at the Global Theatre treated to four blockbuster ties.

O’Sullivan was the inaugural winner of this tournament back in March, with what was the most recent silverware he lifted.

The Rocket will hope that will inspire him as he bids to kick-start his 2024-25 season, having suffered back-to-back first-round exits in his most recent events at the Champion of Champions and UK Championship, while he withdrew on the eve of last week’s Scottish Open.

O’Sullivan has won each of his last four meetings with Ding, though the Dragon is fresh from a dazzling opening day in the Saudi Arabian capital.

The International Championship winner reeled off eight frames without reply as he whitewashed local wildcard Abdulraouf Saigh and Shaun Murphy. He also hit three centuries along the way, including a magnificent 143 total clearance against the latter.

Elsewhere, world number one Judd Trump and Champion of Champions winner Mark Williams collide in a repeat of their epic Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters final in September.

The Ace, also the winner of this season’s Shanghai Masters and UK Championship, produced a nerveless 72 clearance from 62-0 down to snatch a 10-9 victory – and the bumper £500,000 top prize – from under his opponent’s nose.

Fans can enjoy a battle of the Marks for the second successive edition of this tournament, with Mark Allen and Mark Selby locking horns once more.

The Pistol was a 4-3 victor when they met here in March, though the Jester exacted his revenge on the way to victory at September’s British Open.

Meanwhile, the two most recent World champions face off in the day’s other tie as Kyren Wilson does battle with Luca Brecel.

Wilson is eyeing his third silverware of the season, having already captured the Xi’an Grand Prix and Northern Ireland Open, while the Bullet appears to be turning a corner after a poor start to the campaign.

Brecel, who reached the Scottish Open quarter-finals, demonstrated further signs of getting back to his best against Zhang Anda in the second round on Wednesday, hitting breaks of 100 and 120 on the way to a 4-0 whitewash.

Play gets under way at 2pm GMT (5pm local time) on Thursday, with all matches contested over the best of seven frames at the Global Theatre in Boulevard City, Riyadh.

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Riyadh Season Snooker Championship 2024 Day Two Schedule

All times GMT (local time +3 hours)

Thursday December 19

Quarter-Finals

2pm
Mark Allen v Mark Selby

3pm
Kyren Wilson v Luca Brecel

7pm
Judd Trump v Mark Williams

8pm
Ronnie O’Sullivan v Ding Junhui