Matchroom Sport can announce the seven players set to take part in this year\u2019s PartyPoker.com Premier League which commences at Penrith Leisure Centre on Thursday 3rd of September and concludes with the play-offs at Potters Leisure Resort, Hopton-on-Sea on the weekend of the 28th and 29th November.<\/p>\n
Leading the way is defending champion and World No.1 Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan<\/strong> who will be attempting to lift this title for an astonishing sixth consecutive season and ninth time overall.<\/p>\n The Essex-based \u2018Rocket\u2019 has made this Sky Sports-televised event his own in recent times, beating Mark Selby 7-2 in last year\u2019s final, John Higgins<\/strong> 7-4 in 2007 and Jimmy White 7-0 in \u201906.<\/p>\n World Champion Higgins will be returning to Premier League action in an attempt to halt O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s dominance and he will be joined by UK Champion and World Championship runner-up Shaun Murphy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n 35 year-old Higgins was a winner of the Premier League ten years ago when he beat Jimmy White in Maidenhead and will be looking to have a good run after failing to qualify for the play-offs last year.<\/p>\n Murphy makes his second appearance in the event, having played in 2005, following a massive return to form over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n World No.8 Marco Fu<\/strong> is also a previous Premier League Champion when in a memorable weekend in May 2003, he toppled O\u2019Sullivan 6-4 in the semi-finals before beating then World Champion Mark Williams 9-5 to land his first professional title.<\/p>\n The second overseas player in the line-up is Australia\u2019s improving Neil Robertson, who bagged his third career ranking title last year when he won the inaugural Bahrain Snooker Championship.<\/p>\n Robertson had a torrid time of it on his only other Premier League outing in 2007 and will be looking to improve on that year\u2019s showing.<\/p>\n While \u2018legend\u2019 is a term freely used in sport, it is hard to think of any other word when describing seven-time World Champion Stephen Hendry<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The 40 year-old Scot has achieved everything there is to achieve in the game, several times over, and is still a very dangerous competitor. Hendry last won the League in 2004 but that will mean nothing when the action\u00a0 gets underway.<\/p>\n Finally, the joker in the pack is Bristol teenager Judd Trump<\/strong>. The up-and-coming World No.30 qualified for the Premier League by winning the ultra-competitive Championship League Snooker. Hailed as one of snooker\u2019s greatest ever prospects, Trump now gets his chance to see what he can do among the game\u2019s elite.<\/p>\n Commented Matchroom Sport Chairman Barry Hearn, \u201cI think this is very exciting line-up with a\u00a0 diverse selection of top players competing.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, Ronnie will always be the man to beat in this event, but I feel anyone of the others has a chance of winning this title come the end of November.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of the players have struggled with the 25 second shot clock but coping with that has always been one of O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s many strengths.<\/p>\n \u201cThe standard is high and I am looking forward to 12 nights of top class snooker in September, October and November this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Now entering its 24th season, the PartyPoker.com Premier League Snooker is the world\u2019s only major snooker tournament played to a league format. The field consists of seven of the very best players in the world and each player plays the others once over the best of six frames, making a total of 21 matches.<\/p>\n There are two points available for a win and a point for a 3 \u2013 3 draw and following the round robin section of play, the top four players moved forward to the big money play-offs in December.<\/p>\n The total prize fund is in excess of \u00a3200,000, and the money for the round-robin section will be dished out on a \u2018frames won\u2019 basis with \u00a31,000 awarded for each frame. In addition, there is a \u2018Double Your Money\u2019 bonus for a break of 100 or over of another \u00a31,000.<\/p>\n Successful players carry forward their bonuses to the play-offs where the serious money is up for grabs. The \u00a31,000 for a century bonus stays and the champion receives \u00a330,000, the runner-up takes home an additional \u00a315,000 and the beaten semi-finalists make an extra \u00a35,000 each.<\/p>\n The semi-finals are the best of 11 frames and the final is over 13 frames.<\/p>\n The event will be broadcast for over 48 hours LIVE coverage on Sky Sports in the UK and Matchroom Sport Television will produce 24 x 2 hour highlight programmes syndicated globally.<\/p>\n The Full Line-Up<\/strong><\/p>\n Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan – No.1<\/p>\n Shaun Murphy – No.3<\/p>\n John Higgins – No.4<\/p>\n Marco Fu – No.8<\/p>\n Neil Robertson – No.9<\/p>\n Stephen Hendry – No.10<\/p>\n Judd Trump – No.30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matchroom Sport can announce the seven players set to take part in this year\u2019s PartyPoker.com Premier League which commences at Penrith Leisure Centre on Thursday 3rd of September and concludes with the play-offs at Potters Leisure Resort, Hopton-on-Sea on the weekend of the 28th and 29th November. Leading the way is defending champion and World<\/p>\n