Snooker legend Stephen Hendry has given a mighty thumbs up to this year’s World Championship draw – saying it is the best he has seen in years.
The draw was made earlier today and saw reigning world champion Mark Selby drawn against Joe Perry.
It also saw Ronnie O’Sullivan – the season’s best player – come up against Stephen Maguire in arguably the tie of the round.
Just hours after the draw, Hendry tweeted his excitement saying: “Looks one of the best draws we’ve had in years,can’t see any match wouldn’t want to commentate on @BBCSnooker.”.
The seven times world champion will be part of the BBC commentary team during the tournament which kicks off on Saturday.
He added on his Twitter page that there were usually about six matches in the first round draw which would turn off a commentator.
Meanwhile, World Snooker placed many of its fans on tender hooks earlier today when they announced the draw would be delayed for two hours.
The draw was initially scheduled for 10am but World Snooker put it back two hours due to “technical issues”.
The draw in full is as follows:
Mark Selby vs Joe Perry
Mark Allen vs Liam Highfield
Kyren Wilson vs Matthew Stevens
Shaun Murphy vs Jamie Jones
John Higgins vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Stuart Bingham vs Jack Lisowski
Luca Brecel vs Ricky Walden
Judd Trump vs Chris Wakelin
Ding Junhui vs Xiao Guodong
Anthony McGil vs Ryan Day
Marco Fu vs Lyu Haotian
Barry Hawkins vs Stuart Carrington
Mark Williams vs Jimmy Robertson
Neil Robertson vs Robert Milkins
Ali Carter vs Graeme Dott
Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Stephen Maguire
