Dates 13–20 February 2005 Country England Format Non-ranking event | City London Organisation(s) WPBSA | |
Venue Wembley Conference Centre | ||
The 2005 Rileys Club Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 13 and 20 February 2005 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England.
Contents
Ronnie O'Sullivan won his second Masters title beating John Higgins, whom he also beat during O'Sullivan's other title win in 1995, 10–3. Not since Steve Davis whitewashed Mike Hallett 9–0 in 1988 had there been such a runaway London final.
Davis meanwhile defeated defending champion Paul Hunter 6–5, before losing to Peter Ebdon in the quarter-finals. Another veteran, Jimmy White, who had recently signed a madcap sponsorship deal with HP Sauce (which had sponsored the brown ball in the game) and renaming himself as 'James Brown' (but the new name was never mentioned by referees or commentators during the tournament), made it to the semi-finals again and played against O'Sullivan, but lost 1–6.
After not having a sponsor the previous year, Riley's Club stepped in for the 2005 event. For the first time since the 1989/1990 season there was no qualifying event for the Masters.
Field
Defending champion Paul Hunter was the number 1 seed with World Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan seeded 2. Places were allocated to the top 16 players in the world rankings. Players seeded 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the two wild-card selections, Stephen Maguire (ranked 24) and Ding Junhui (ranked 76). Stephen Maguire had won the UK Championship the previous November and was making his debut in the Masters.
Prize fund
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below: