Cheltenham Calling: Everything You Need to Know About the 2026 British Open
A Tournament Like No Other
There is a particular kind of tension that settles over the Centaur in Cheltenham when the draw is made for each round of the British Open. No seeded sections, no protective brackets — just names pulled at random, meaning the world number one can find himself across the table from a qualifier who scraped through on the final day in Leicester. It is chaotic, occasionally brutal, and utterly compelling. Alongside the Shoot Out, the British Open stands as one of only two events on the World Snooker Tour to use a random draw at every stage, and that quirk gives the whole week a flavour you simply cannot manufacture.
The 2026 edition gets underway on Monday, 31st August and runs through to the final on Sunday, 6th September, with the Centaur once again providing the venue. It is the fourth ranking event of the 2026/27 season, arriving at a point in the calendar when players are still finding their rhythm — which only adds to the unpredictability that defines this tournament.
The Road to Cheltenham
Much of the groundwork has already been done. A qualifying stage was held in July at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester, where most of the last-128 matches were contested and the field was whittled down accordingly. The top 16 seeds were kept back, their opening-round matches deferred to the venue stage — a common arrangement in the sport that at least guarantees the tournament's biggest names will be present in Cheltenham from the off.
Not all of them, as it turns out. Ronnie O'Sullivan, a former champion who lifted the trophy back in 1994, has withdrawn from the event. It is a blow for the tournament's profile, though hardly a surprise given O'Sullivan's increasingly selective schedule in recent seasons. Two other notable absentees from the later rounds are Jimmy White and Ryan Day, both of whom were eliminated during the preliminary phase before the action moved to Cheltenham.
Murphy, Zhao and the Standout First-Round Ties
The defending champion is Shaun Murphy, and he returns to the Centaur with something to prove. Murphy's opening match presents a genuinely fascinating storyline: he faces Reanne Evans, the 12-time women's world champion, in what is one of the most eye-catching ties of the first round. Evans has been a trailblazer in the sport for years, and occasions like this — on a ranking stage, under proper competitive pressure — are exactly the kind of platform that her talent deserves.
Elsewhere, all eyes will be on Zhao Xintong, who enters this tournament as the new world number one. His first match in that role comes against Oliver Brown, and there will be plenty of curiosity about how Zhao carries the weight of top billing. The Chinese star's rise has been one of the stories of the season so far, and Cheltenham offers him an early opportunity to underline his credentials. World snooker champion Wu Yize is also in the draw, continuing what has been a remarkable period for Chinese snooker on the world stage.
Among the other former champions in the field are Mark Selby, who won the title as recently as 2024, the evergreen John Higgins, and Mark Williams, a three-time British Open champion whose longevity at the top of the game continues to astonish. The tournament was first staged in 1985, disappeared from the calendar in 2004, and was revived in 2021 — and with a roster like this, it feels more firmly embedded in the season than ever.
Prize Money and Match Format
With a total prize fund of £502,000, there is plenty at stake across the week. The winner will collect £100,000, with the runner-up taking home £45,000. Semi-finalists earn £20,000 apiece, while a highest break prize of £5,000 adds an extra incentive for the shot-makers in the field.
In terms of format, matches up to and including the last 16 are played over the best of seven frames. The quarter-finals step up to best of nine, the semi-finals to best of 11, and the final is contested over a best of 19 — a substantial examination of nerve and stamina for the two players who make it that far.
How to Follow the Action
Whether you are a seasoned fan who has followed this tournament since its earliest days or someone who simply wants to watch the best players in the world collide in unpredictable circumstances, the 2026 British Open delivers. With Zhao Xintong wearing the world number one tag for the first time, Murphy bidding to defend his crown, and the random draw doing what it always does — throwing up combinations nobody saw coming — Cheltenham is the place to be this week.
