The 2024-25 World Snooker season begins in earnest on Monday, June 10 with the beginning of the Championship League at the Leicester Arena a mere month after England's Kyren Wilson claimed his first World Championship crown at The Crucible.
Seventeen ranking events, coupled with three non-ranking titles await with the Triple Crown – the UK Championship, The Masters and the 2025 World Championship - the three major highlights on the calendar. However, the schedule remains subject to change.
The opening event sees 128 players compete between June 10 and July 3, with an initial group stage that splits the players into 32 groups of four. The winner of each group – which plays a single round-robin format – advances to Stage Two.
Eight groups of four are then formed in another single round-robin format, with eight players remaining for Stage Three which boasts two groups of four. A best of five frame final between the winners of those two groups then decides the overall victor. All group matches are played over four frames, with a 2-2 draw possible.
England's Shaun Murphy (11/1) is the defending champion. He won seven of his 10 matches in the 2023 tournament, drawing the other three, to earn victory, beating Mark Williams 3-0 in the final.
Ronnie O'Sullivan (11/2) is the bookies favourite, and he looks to have a relatively easy opening group with Kayden Brierly, He Guoqiang and Mitchell Mann his opponents. Next in the betting is Neil Robertson at 8/1 - he faces Zack Richardson, Jamie Clarke and Cheung Ka Wai.
World champion Kyren Wilson (8/1) is drawn in Group 1 with Daniel Womersley, Scott Donaldson and Baipat Siripaporn for company.
An ultra-competitive group seems to be Group 6, which hosts talents like triple-ranking event winner Gary Wilson, two-time ranking winner Joe Perry and 2020 Shoot Out champion Michael Holt.
Other contenders of note throughout the draw include Mark Williams (11/1), John Higgins (11/1), Jack Lisowski 14/1 and Ali Carter (14/1). David Gilbert (18/1) is a former winner of the competition from 2021, as is Kyren Wilson in 2020.
