The draw for the first qualifying round of the 2017 World Championship was made on Sunday.

128 players head to Ponds Forge this week attempting to win the three encounters necessary to reach the main stages at the Crucible later in April.

Welshman Mark Williams, twice a world champion, narrowly missed out on an automatic spot when he lost in a thrilling China Open final to Mark Selby at the weekend. Williams would have been hoping for a kind qualifying draw as some consolation but the 42 year-old has been handed an extremely tricky task in talented Chinese youngster Zhao Xintong.

Elsewhere, six-time finalist Jimmy White will play Jack Lisowski in his opener while Irishman Ken Doherty, celebrating the 20th anniversary since his famous triumph in Sheffield, meets Englishman Jason Weston. Both White and Doherty require victories in qualifying to avoid falling off the Main Tour and losing their professional cards.

Qualifying begins on Wednesday and runs for eight days in Sheffield. The full first round draw is below:

World Championship Qualifying Draw: Round 1 (Best of 19 frames)

Mark Williams vs Zhao Xintong

Liam Highfield vs Andres Petrov (a)

Stuart Carrington vs Alex Borg

Andrew Higginson vs Michael Georgiou

Tom Ford vs Jamie Bodle (a)

Chris Wakelin vs Elliot Slessor

Matthew Selt vs David John

Hossein Vafaei Ayouri vs Hatem Yassin

Robin Hull vs Reanne Evans (a)

Matthew Stevens vs Lee Walker

Noppon Saengkham vs Jak Jones

Anthony Hamilton vs Craig Steadman

Li Hang vs Fraser Patrick

Mike Dunn vs Andy Hicks (a)

Nigel Bond vs Ng On Yee (a)

Stephen Maguire vs Kritsanut Lertsattayatthorn

Mark King vs Paul Davison

Zhang Anda vs Fang Xiongman

Xiao Guodong vs Tyler Rees (a)

Sam Baird vs Ross Vallance (a)

Ben Woollaston vs Chris Totten (a)

Ken Doherty vs Jason Weston

Zhou Yuelong vs Christopher Keogan

Ian Burns vs Ian Preece

Alfie Burden vs Adam Duffy

Jamie Jones vs Jamie Barrett

Dechawat Poomjaeng vs Chen Zhe

Graeme Dott vs Allan Taylor

Tian Pengfei vs Zhang Yong

Fergal O’Brien vs Gerard Greene (a)

Rhys Clark vs Wayne Townsend (a)

David Gilbert vs Patrick Wallace (a)

Joe Perry vs Zack Richardson (a)

Mei Xiwen vs Akani Songermsawad

Mark Joyce vs Jordan Brown (a)

David Grace vs Thor Chuan Leong

Luca Brecel vs Sean O’Sullivan

Joe Swail vs Sanderson Lam

Dominic Dale vs Boonyarit Kaettikun

Daniel Wells vs Adam Stefanow (a)

Gary Wilson vs Josh Boileau

Thepchaiya Un-Nooh vs Peter Lines (a)

Ross Muir vs Gareth Allen

Michael White vs Aditya Mehta

Rory McLeod vs Darryl Hill

Kurt Maflin vs Sydney Wilson

Martin O’Donnell vs Jackson Page (a)

Ricky Walden vs Hammad Miah

Michael Holt vs Hamza Akbar

Jamie Cope vs Eden Sharav

Peter Ebdon vs Michael Wild

Jack Lisowski vs Jimmy White

Alan McManus vs Kurt Dunham

Rod Lawler vs Xu Si (a)

Jimmy Robertson vs Cao Yupeng

Oliver Lines vs Duane Jones

Yan Bingtao vs Sam Craigie

Mark Davis vs Mitchell Mann

Scott Donaldson vs Wang Yuchen

Robert Milkins vs Alexander Ursenbacher (a)

Robbie Williams vs James Cahill

Yu Delu vs Itaro Santos

John Astley vs Igor Figueiredo

Martin Gould vs James Wattana