The 2023 World Grand Prix (officially the 2023 Duelbits World Grand Prix) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 16 to 22 January 2023 at The Centaur in Cheltenham, England. The eighth ranking event of the 2022–23 snooker season, it preceded the 2023 Players Championship and the 2023 Tour Championship as the first of three events in the Players Series. Sponsored for the first time by cryptocurrency casino Duelbits, the tournament was broadcast by ITV domestically, by Eurosport in Europe, and by Matchroom Sport and other broadcasters internationally. The winner received £100,000 from a total prize fund of £380,000.
The participants were the top 32 players on the one-year ranking list as it stood after the 2022 English Open. Lu Ning was ineligible to compete after the sport's governing body suspended him amid a match-fixing investigation; his place went to David Gilbert. Four-time world champion John Higgins failed to qualify after finishing at 54th place on the one-year list following the English Open.
The defending champion was Ronnie O'Sullivan, who defeated Neil Robertson 10–8 in the previous season's final. However, O'Sullivan lost 2–4 to Noppon Saengkham in the last 16. Facing Judd Trump in the final, Mark Allen won five consecutive frames to lead 7–2, but Trump won six of the next seven to tie the scores at 8–8. The match went to a deciding frame, where Allen clinched a 10–9 victory to win his ninth ranking title. It was Allen's third ranking tournament win of the season, following the 2022 Northern Ireland Open and 2022 UK Championship, and took him to a career-high of number three in the world rankings. Allen made the tournament's highest break of 141 in the 12th frame of the final.
Prize fund The breakdown of prize money for the event is shown below:
Winner: £100,000 Runner-up: £40,000 Semi-final: £20,000 Quarter-final: £12,500 Last 16: £7,500 Last 32: £5,000 Highest break: £10,000 Total: £380,000
Seeding list The top 32 players on the one-year ranking list, up to and including the 2022 English Open, qualified for the tournament. Seedings were based on the order of the players in that list.
The rankings are given below.
+ Seed Player Total points1 402,0002 136,5003 120,0004 117,0005 116,0006 98,5007 93,5008 75,5009 70,00010 61,00011 59,50012 58,50013 55,00014 53,50015 52,50016 49,00017 47,00018 45,50019 44,50020 44,00021 42,00022 39,50023 39,00024 38,00025 36,50026 36,50027 35,50028 35,50029 34,50030 32,50031 31,00032 31,000
Tournament draw
Final Final: Best of 19 frames. Referee: Brendan Moore The Centaur, Cheltenham, England, 22 January 2023 Mark Allen (1) 10–9 Judd Trump (10) Afternoon: 58–22, 33–68, 0–74, 71–31, 89–25, 63–28, 83–9, 123–0 Evening: 88–0, 0–140 (140), 30–108 (108), 141–0 (141), 0–91,41–87, 11–79, 1–93, 65–27, 0–76, 60–19 141 Highest break 140 1 Century breaks 2
Century breaks A total of 30 century breaks were made during the tournament.
141, 133, 127, 105 Mark Allen 140, 138, 117, 112, 108, 107 Judd Trump 140, 100 Shaun Murphy 133 Ding Junhui 131, 108, 102 Anthony McGill 122, 104 Noppon Saengkham 121, 104, 100 Mark Williams 117 Joe O'Connor 113, 107 Sam Craigie 109 Neil Robertson 108 Ronnie O'Sullivan 107, 104 Zhou Yuelong 102 Jack Lisowski 101 Ryan Day
References