When does Ronnie O'Sullivan begin his 2020 World Snooker Championship campaign?

ByEurosport

Updated 16/07/2020 at 12:08 GMT

Five-times world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan will begin his bid for an elusive sixth world title at 2:30pm (BST) on Sunday 2 August at the Crucible Theatre.

Ronnie O'Sullivan

Image credit: Getty Images

O'Sullivan plays his opening best-of-19 frame match to a finish from 10am on Monday 3 August at the Sheffield venue – and is provisionally scheduled to begin his second-round match over the best of 25 frames at 7pm on Friday 7 August with the second session at 2:30pm on Saturday 8 August and the third and final session starting at 7pm on Sunday 9 August.

O'Sullivan – champion in 2001, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2013 – is seeded sixth at this year's event and could face a potential last-16 meeting with defending UK champion Ding Junhui providing both men progress from the first round.

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O'Sullivan lost 13-10 to Ding in the last eight in 2017 – who also beat him 6-4 in the last 16 of the UK Championship in December – and has yet to go beyond the quarter-finals at the game's biggest tournament since losing 18-14 to Mark Selby in the 2014 final.

He will hope to avoid another upset in the first round having lost 10-8 to amateur qualifier James Cahill last year in arguably the biggest shock since the tournament was first staged at the Crucible in 1977.

As is tradition, world number one and defending champion Judd Trump – an 18-9 winner over four-times champion John Higgins in the final 14 months ago – will be in action on the opening morning of the event at 10am on Friday 31 July before playing to a finish from 7pm on the same day.

He is seeded to face 16th seed Yan Bingtao in the second round with their match due to begin at 2:30pm on Thursday 6 August.

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Ding, Stuart Bingham, Mark Williams and Kyren Wilson are other seeds in action on the opening day of the event which carries a £500,000 first prize – the most lucrative event in the sport.

The draw for the final stages of the tournament will take place at 11am on Wednesday 29 July with the top 16 seeds facing 16 qualifiers from the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.

FULL DRAW DETAILS HERE

FULL FORMAT DETAILS HERE

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