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Eurosport commentators Mike Hallett and David Hendon preview the Royal London Watches Grand Prix, which features a new FA Cup-style draw for the first time.

David Hendon: I am absolutely a fan of the new-style draw, which will see players drawn randomly against each other in every round.

It has been done before at the British Open, back in the 1990s, and people were a bit disgruntled then as they thought it might favour the lower-ranked players and there might be too many shock winners.

But at the end of the day, the cream will come through and the way that the game is now, any one of the top 32 could win the tournament - as we have seen in Shanghai with Ricky Walden coming through the qualifiers to win.

Mike Hallett: They are tinkering with the format, just to make things a bit more exciting, and there is nothing wrong with that. We are getting more and more tournaments on the calendar now, it makes sense to try to give each one of them their own identity.

World Snooker gave the Grand Prix the round-robin format for a couple of years and that didn't really work so now they are trying this random draw and I think it is a good thing. We could have a player ranked 58 in the world taking on a guy ranked 32 in the final, you never know. It adds something extra to the tournament.

DH: It adds a little bit of excitement for the fans, for the television and for the players. I think it's great.

In a way, it does the players a bit of a favour because they are not going to look at the draw and start plotting their route to the final; they have got to concentrate on every match.

If you are in the upper echelons of the rankings you might think 'What's the point in being world number one if the draw is getting picked at random?' But I think the players will get over that and get on with things.

MH: Looking at the first-round draw there are already some excellent early matches; Ronnie O'Sullivan against Liang Wenbo, that stands out. Ronnie did well in Shanghai but will still return a little disappointed not to have become the first player in 15 years to win three ranking tournaments in a row. And Liang is a very dangerous player; we have known that since he reached the quarter-finals at the Crucible in April.

The way that our game is now, with the standard being so high outside of the top 16, we were already getting some excellent matches and surprise results early on in tournaments. This new format will just add a bit of extra spice.

DH: And anyway, there is nothing wrong with outsiders winning tournaments and you can guarantee that the guy who does win will be the best player that week. Whatever the draw, you still have to beat some great players. There are no easy matches anymore.

Mike and David were speaking to Alex Sharratt

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