Added spice at this year's Welsh

You've got to love the new snooker calendar.

Barely has the German Masters finished, and now the players are being plunged into the Welsh Open.

Tomorrow sees the start fo the qualifiers for Newport, but unlike previous years where this has often been the poor man's ranking event, there's added significance.

With a ranking cut-off point due for after the event, every player will be scrapping for their seeding ahead of this year's World Championship.

This should give the event that little bit of extra spice it's sometimes missing. Amd with the qualifiers being played over seven frames and without an interval, it promises to be fast and furious.

Qualifiers, start your engines...


Here's who I'm backing to be the 16 qualifers who make it through:

• Martin Gould
• Dave Harold
• Ryan Day
• Matthew Stevens
• Barry Hawkins
• Dominic Dale
• Mark Joyce
• Marcus Campbell
• Marco Fu
• Stephen Lee
• Joe Perry
• Gerard Greene
• Stuart Bingham
• Andrew Higginson
• Tom Ford
• Nigel Bond

See how many I can get!