While there has been no official word yet on the names of the seven wildcard players who will be compete at the Shanghai Masters next month, a reliable source has informed me of the identities of five of those involved…
In a break from the norm with these events, apparently only five of the seven will be from China. These are as follows:
- Tian Pengfei
- Shi Hanqing
- Yu Delu
- Li Yan
- Tang Jun
For regular readers, most if not all of these players will be familiar having either competed as a wildcard previously or having played during some of the IBSF events as for example Shi Hanqing did recently in the World U-21 Championship.
I do not know the names of the final two wildcards but apparently one is from India and one from the United Arab Emirates. Aditya Mehta perhaps?
Again I must stress that this is not official, but if true it would be harsh on Li Hang and Mei Xiwen who were both forced to miss the qualifiers due to visa issues and were expected by some to receive wildcards into the event.
Hopefully we will hear something from World Snooker soon and when we do I will post a little more about each of the seven players involved.