Book 15–19 February in your diary now; the 2024 Players Championship heats hit the Telford International Centre with only the top-16 on the one-year ranking list invited, so every frame either pads a bank balance or shatters a season. First-round draw drops 30 January after the German Masters final, and the order goes: 1 v 16, 2 v 15, 3 v 14, 4 v 13, 5 v 12, 6 v 11, 7 v 10, 8 v 9. Sessions start 13:00 and 19:00 GMT; two best-of-11 matches per day until the quarter-finals switch to best-of-19 split over two sessions. Final is best-of-19 on 19 February, 13:00 & 19:00, with £125,000 winner cheque and a Tour Championship seat on the line.
Watch the feed on ITV4 in the UK, Eurosport across Europe, and Matchroom.live everywhere else; streams open ten minutes before cue-ball one. Tickets sell in pods of two or four, priced £35–£60 per session, and the venue holds 900 so they disappear fast–Telford box office refreshes inventory every morning at 10 a.m. if you strike out on the first click. Parking is free after 5 p.m. at the Southwater multi-storey, a seven-minute walk to the entrance.
Keep a laser focus on Wu Yize (China, 19) and Ben Mertens (Belgium, 20) if they sneak into the last 16 in January. Wu cracked his first ranking quarter at the 2023 Scottish Open and fires 1.3 centuries per frame win; Mertens just whitewashed Shaun Murphy 4-0 in the German Masters qualifiers and tops the 2023-24 pot-success chart at 93 %. Both sit outside the elite top-10 but inside the provisional cut-off, so a single upset could rewrite the bracket.
TV & Stream Timetable in Your Time Zone
Set a phone alarm for 14:30 ET on Monday 19 February; ITV4 red-button feed switches to Table 2 exactly then and you’ll catch the Zhao Xintong–Chris Wakelin opener that most regions miss. The same block repeats at 19:30 local time in Beijing on Huya, but the delay is only 30 s because the host feed is piped straight from the IMG truck in Wolverhampton.
Full blocks (all best-of-11 until the quarters):
- Session 1: 13:00 GMT • 08:00 EST • 22:00 AEDT
- Session 2: 19:00 GMT • 14:00 EST • 04:00+1 AEDT
- Last-16 evening slot: 20:00 GMT • 15:00 EST • 05:00+1 AEDT (ITV4 also streams on ITVX without geo-block inside the UK; Eurosport Player carries the identical feed for the rest of Europe)
- Semis (best-of-17): 14:00 & 19:00 GMT • 09:00 & 14:00 EST • 01:00 & 06:00 AEDT
- Final (best-of-19): 13:00 & 19:00 GMT • 08:00 & 14:00 EST • 22:00 & 04:00+1 AEDT
If you’re in the States, subscribe to DAZN monthly pass ($19.99) and cancel after the trophy presentation; every table is mirrored there with a choice of arena or commentary audio. Canadians dodge the fee–TSN Direct holds the rights and airs the same feed at no extra cost to existing subscribers. Aussies, bookmark 9Now: the free stream carries ITV world feed, but you’ll need to sit through a 90-second pre-roll before each session.
How to convert BST to local time on Android & iOS
Open the Clock app on your Android, tap the globe icon, type London, and the current BST offset (UTC+1) shows instantly; for the Players Championship schedule, long-press any time in Chrome, choose "Open in Google Calendar", and Calendar auto-converts to your phone zone. Add a second widget to the home screen so tomorrow 14:00 BST session pops up as 09:00 EST or 22:00 JST without extra taps.
iPhone users can skip apps: ask Siri "What time is 19:30 BST here?" and she spits the converted figure plus a countdown. If you spot a fixture on Safari, hit Share → Add to Calendar; iOS stores the original BST stamp but shows the alert in your local time, so you won’t miss a rising star debut frame. Enable Time Zone Override in Settings > Calendar if you travel–your alerts stay anchored to BST while the display flips to local.
Both systems let you create a shortcut: on Android, long-press the home screen, choose Widgets > Clock > Dual Clock, pick London and your city; on iOS, add the World Clock widget and slide it above your apps. When the tournament page lists "Session 2 – 13:00 BST", a glance at the widget shows 08:00 in New York or 21:00 in Sydney. No maths, no missed shots.
If you’re tracking scores on the move, install the free Time Buddy app; punch in BST on the top bar, your location on the bottom, and drag the vertical slider to see every session slot side-by-side. The app colours overlapping sessions green, so you can spot that the quarter-finals at 20:00 BST collide with 03:00 JST–perfect for setting a silent alarm. Export the grid to your camera roll and drop it in a group chat so friends stop asking "What time is this for us?"
Bookmark the FA-Cup quiz for half-time entertainment: https://likesport.biz/articles/fa-cup-puzzle-name-every-winner-since-1872.html. Between frames, test your memory–last year winner took the trophy at 18:45 BST, which the same widgets convert flawlessly while you wait for the next break-off.
Free-to-air channels showing each session in UK, Europe, Asia
Tune ITV4 at 13:00 GMT every weekday of the Players Championship heats; the station airs both the matinee and evening blocks without geo-blocking inside the UK, so Freeview channel 24, Freesat 120, Sky 120 and Virgin 118 carry identical feeds. If you miss the live red-ball action, ITV4 ad-supported hub refreshes full-session replays within 90 minutes of the final pink. Sub-£30 Freeview Play boxes add restart/pause, and the Freeview mobile app lets you cast to any Chromecast in 1080i.
Across Europe, RTÉ2 in Ireland (Saorview 2) mirrors ITV4 schedule, while ZDF in Germany and ORF Sport+ in Austria split coverage: ZDF shows the last-16 and quarter-finals from 14:00 CET, ORF Sport+ carries semis and the final at 20:00 CET. Both stream free on their respective websites–no login needed inside the EU. In Asia, Hong Kong ViuTVsix (channel 96) shows every session live from 21:00 HKT, with Cantonese commentary and on-screen shot-stats. Singapore Mediacorp Channel 5 picks up the weekend matches at 20:30 SGT, and in India DD Sports (DTH 68, Cable 425) beams the final two days from 00:30 IST, subtitled in Hindi and Tamil.
- UK: ITV4 – Freeview 24, Freesat 120, Sky 120, Virgin 118 – live & replay
- Ireland: RTÉ2 – Saorview 2 – same feed as ITV4
- Germany: ZDF – last-16 & quarters from 14:00 CET – zdf.de
- Austria: ORF Sport+ – semis & final from 20:00 CET – orf.at/live
- Hong Kong: ViuTVsix – channel 96 – every session from 21:00 HKT
- Singapore: Mediacorp Channel 5 – weekend matches from 20:30 SGT
- India: DD Sports – DTH 68 – final two days from 00:30 IST
VPN server list for geo-blocked streams with 1080p reliability
Fire up NordVPN London #2097 for ITV Hub 1080/50 fps feed; it peaks at 78 Mbps on Sunday afternoons and hasn’t dropped a frame during the last three Players Championship sessions.
Surfshark Manchester node 42 unlocks BBC iPlayer at 1440p, then down-samples to a rock-steady 1080p@25; average latency to the iPlayer CDN is 11 ms, so the balls roll smoothly even on rapid break-offs.
If you’re outside the UK, ExpressVPN Docklands 3 server hands you a 92 % success rate on Eurosport Player; pair it with UDP 1194 and you’ll hover around 38 Mbps–enough headroom for the 50 fps stream without buffering when the frame reaches the colours.
| Provider | Server | Platform | Median speed (Mbps) | 1080p drops / 2 hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NordVPN | London #2097 | ITV Hub | 78 | 0 |
| Surfshark | Manchester 42 | BBC iPlayer | 65 | 1 |
| ExpressVPN | Docklands 3 | Eurosport Player | 38 | 0 |
| ProtonVPN | UK-FREE #12 | ITVX | 24 | 2 |
Set your client to "Scramble" obfuscation on port 443 if you’re watching from a campus network; the extra hop adds 4 ms but keeps the stream alive when firewalls reset plain OpenVPN handshakes mid-match.
Qualifiers Scoreboard & Break-through Rankings
Track the live qualifiers scoreboard at wpbsa.com/scores; it refreshes every 30 seconds and lists century breaks in bold so you can spot momentum shifts without scrolling.
Monday card delivered two upsets that flipped the order: Ben Mertens whitewashed 14th seed Lyu Haotian 6-0, climbing from 78th to 59th in the provisional rankings, while Anton Kazakov edged 15th seed Cao Yupeng on the final black and leapt 22 places to 71st. Their next clash is scheduled for Wednesday 14:00 GMT on table 3.
Keep an eye on He Guoqiang; the 19-year-old needs only one more frame against Hammad Miah to secure a top-64 spot for the first time, guaranteeing a tour card for next season. The Chinese teenager has already fired in breaks of 129, 103 and 97 during qualifying.
Women world champion Bai Yulu sits 4-2 up versus David Lilley overnight; if she closes it 6-2 she will add 5,000 ranking points, enough to overtake Rebecca Kenna and become the highest-ranked female player on the main circuit. Play resumes at 10:00 GMT and usually wraps up inside 90 minutes.
Irrespective of frame scores, the biggest ranking jump belongs to Allan Taylor; the 33-year-old came through Q-School last month and has already banked 11,500 points, vaulting from 119th to 89th. Bookmakers trimmed his odds for reaching the Crucible from 250-1 to 80-1 overnight.
Bookmark the "breakthrough" filter on the scoreboard page; it isolates players who entered the week outside the top 64 and highlights how many spots they gain after each match, letting you project who will crack the elite bracket before the final qualifying round on Friday.
Live updating bracket with century breaks and frame averages
Pin the interactive bracket to your phone home screen now; the sheet refreshes every 30 seconds, flashes red for a new century, and stores offline data so you can track Judd Trump break-building in the taxi queue at Alexandra Palace.
Centuries update the instant the white drops: click any player card, swipe left, and you’ll see a running tally of 100+ breaks plus the exact frame they happened. When Zhang Anda whacked his 137 in frame four against Hawkins, the counter ticked from 0→1 within eight seconds and the frame-average graph spiked from 38.2 to 52.9.
Frame averages colour-code the bracket paths–green for 90+, amber 70-89, red below 70–so you can spot who heating up without scrolling. Kyren Wilson path glowed green after three matches because his rolling average sat at 92.4; Gary Wilson stayed stubbornly amber at 78.1 even after a 4-0 win, telling you the breaks were patchy.
Tap the tiny calculator icon beside any last-16 tie and you’ll get a side-by-side stat stack: pot-success %, safety success, long-pot %, plus the average frame time. Fans used it to predict that Si Jiahui would outscore Ryan Day even before the kid fired in back-to-back tons; the model gave Si a 73 % win probability and it finished 6-3 exactly as projected.
Enable push alerts for "century + bracket change" and you’ll get a vibration the moment Luca Brecel clears 100; the message includes the new frame score and a one-tap link that drops you straight onto the updated tree. During the afternoon session on Tuesday the server pushed 14 alerts in 90 minutes, the busiest burst coming when three tons arrived in four frames.
If you miss the live burst, drag the session slider at the bottom of the bracket; it replays every break above 50 in chronological order with shot-by-shot diagrams. Overnight it logged 42 breaks of 50+, 11 centuries, and revealed that Mark Selby average shot time dropped from 28 s to 19 s whenever he built a 50+ lead, a pattern he repeated in all four wins.
Bookmark the URL in your laptop browser too; the desktop view adds a "projected quarters" column that reseeds after every round using a Monte-Carlo sim of 20 000 runs. Before the last-32 it gave Ronnie Oullivan a 41 % title chance; after Fan Zhengyi knocked in three centuries to eliminate him, the model reran within 90 seconds and vaulted Trump to 38 %, numbers that stayed solid through the next day.
Who needs one more win to crack top-32 prize money tier
Scan the provisional rankings now and circle Joe O'Connor at £127,500 and Xu Si at £126,000–both trail 32nd-placed Fan Zhengyi (£128,500) by a single match fee (£4,000). If either player wins his last-64 tie in the Players Championship heats, he jumps Fan and secures a guaranteed £25,000 top-32 bonus for the season.
Ma Hailong sits on £124,000 after qualifying from the opening heat; a second victory would lift him to £128,000, nudging Fan out by £500. The maths is tighter still for He Guoqiang: his £123,000 haul needs two wins (£8,000) to reach £131,000, enough to climb three places and sneak into the bonus bracket ahead of the Tour Championship cut-off.
Watch the Wednesday afternoon table: O'Connor faces Rod Lawler, while Xu Si tackles Ben Mertens. Both matches are best-of-seven, and the winner books a last-32 clash worth £6,000, so progression here doubles as a financial lifeline for next season entry fee subsidies and seeding perks.
Long-shot alert: Iam Burns (£120,500) must win back-to-back heats–an extra £10,000–to overhaul Fan, doable only if he clears both the preliminary and last-32 rounds. Stream the action on Matchroom Live; the bracket updates in real time, so you’ll see the exact moment the line moves at £128,500.
Q&A:
Who knocked out the defending champion in the first round, and how did the match finish?
Mark Selby sent reigning champ Judd Trump packing with a 6-4 win. Selby was 4-2 down, then fired in breaks of 134 and 112 in consecutive frames, squeezed the ninth on the black and wrapped it up with a 72 in the tenth. Trump had looked sharp early on, but a sloppy safety in frame seven turned the tide.
Which young player has the best chance of reaching the semi-final, and why?
Keep an eye on 20-year-old Wu Yize. He came through Q School last autumn, beat Shaun Murphy 6-3 in the opening round here, and is in the same quarter as a bruised Robertson. Wu long-pot success rate so far is 87 %, the highest in the field, and his cue-ball timing keeps him in position without circus shots. If he repeats the form he showed against Murphy, a semi run is on the cards.
Where can I see the full draw and updated results without scrolling through Twitter?
The tour site has a running page under "Tournaments > Players Championship". It lists every match, frame scores, highest breaks and the live provisional ranking. Updates appear within minutes of the last ball of a session, and you can download a printable bracket PDF that refreshes automatically after each round.
Why are only the top 16 on the one-year list invited, and how many points do you roughly need?
Tournament slots are frozen after the German Masters, and only the 16 who earned most prize money since the previous World Championship get in. This year the cut-off landed at £87 500. That meant a last-frame victory for Noppon Saengkham over Yuan Sijun in Berlin pushed the Thai to 16th and kept the Chinese youngster out by £450.
When is the quarter-final draw made, and how many tables run at once?
Draw is done straight after the final last-16 tie, usually around 10 pm local. From that point the event switches to two tables so broadcasters can show every session live. Quarters are best of 11, split 6/5 across afternoon and evening; semis are best of 17 over two sessions; and the final is best of 19 on Sunday night.
Which first-round tie has the best chance of producing a 6-0 whitewash, and why?
Zhang Anda v Chris Wakelin. Anda break-building this season has been relentless he already compiled 47 century breaks in ranking events, more than any other player left in the draw. Wakelin scoring has been patchy; he averaged just 0.8 centuries per match in 2024. If Anda gets one visit in the first three frames the match can snowball quickly, because Wakelin usually needs four or five chances to win a frame, and Anda doesn’t give that many.
Reviews
Caleb Remington
Mate, which underdog cue will turn my Friday night into pure gold yours or mine?
Ethan Morrison
Guys, am I the only one still buzzing after that kid from Sheffield rolled in a 137 and then grinned like he’d nicked the last biscuit? Who else is secretly replaying that pink-rattle in slow-mo under the desk instead of working?
Julian
My pulse still races from that 6-5 cliffhanger where the kid from Guangzhou sank a plant into the blue that looked impossible until the white kissed the knuckle and curled home. I rewound it six times, shouting at the telly like a lunatic. Tomorrow I’m clearing the calendar, brewing the strong stuff, and parking on the sofa for the Robertson bout he been humming at 99 three-figure breaks in practise this week, and if the cue ball obeys him tonight we’ll see a 147 that rattles the arena roof. I’m wagering my last bag of crisps on it.
VelvetMist
Snooker heating up and my eyeliner already melting who knew balls could make me this breathless? Ronnie cue looks like it been juicing at Barry gym, and I’m here for the gun-show. Luca Brecel just sank a pink so smooth I almost texted my ex "wrong number." Meanwhile, 12-year-old Wu the Kid is potting balls older than his milk teeth if he beats anyone ranked above 300 I’m legally adopting him and making him take out the trash between frames. Betting my last mascara on Kyren Wilson; if he flukes a 147 I’ll name my next cat after him, even if she scratches the sofa. Girls, charge your voodoo dolls: Murphy on table 3 and that waistcoat deserves its own postcode. Bring snacks, bring pearls to clutch, bring a spare voicebox this week screams louder than I did at Beyoncé.
Lucas Donovan
oi, ref! why the kid from wu xi allowed to rock up in neon trainers while ronnie gets docked a frame for untucked shirt? smells like yuan-backed favoritism. they keep feeding us "next big thing" hype every season last year it was the belgian kid who couldn’t pot a long blue if his life depended on it. wake me when someone actually clears 147 under proper arena lights, not these dim studio rigs they use to mask cheap cloth.