Dates 15–22 January 2006 Country England Format Non-ranking event | City London Organisation(s) WPBSA | |
Venue Wembley Conference Centre | ||
The 2006 SAGA Insurance Masters was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place from 15 to 22 January 2006 at the Wembley Conference Centre in London, England. It was the 32nd edition of the tournament, and the last time that the tournament was held at this venue. The tournament was part of the 2005/2006 season.
Contents
John Higgins won the tournament by defeating Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–9 in the final.
Field
Defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan was the number 1 seed with World Champion Shaun Murphy seeded 2. Places were allocated to the leading players in the world rankings. With Murphy having a ranking of 21, Ian McCulloch, ranked 16, was not an automatic invitation. Players seeded 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the winner of the qualifying event, Stuart Bingham (ranked 37), and McCulloch, who was the wild-card selection. Stuart Bingham and Ian McCulloch were making their debuts in the Masters.
Prize fund
The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below:
Qualifying stage
Wild-card round
In the preliminary "wild-card round", the two wild-card players were drawn against the players seeded 15th and 16th:
Qualifying
The 2005 Masters Qualifying Event s were held between 20 and 23 November 2005 at Pontin's in Prestatyn, Wales. The winner of this series of matches, who qualified for the tournament, was Stuart Bingham.