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