Who's Hot and who's not? Knock-out draw

As Cardiff recorded the highest temperatures in the United Kingdom, several stars of the blue baize were wilting in the heat on Judgement Day.

Former world champion Nick Varner was one of several American casualties. The Hall of Fame inductee threw away a 4-1 lead over Antonio Lining and with it went his chances of qualifying for the Last 64. He'll be joined on the plane home to America by Charlie Williams, who never showed in Group 5.

Johnny Archer and Earl Strickland left it to the last minute to scrape through their groups. Archer started his campaign with three losses but came with a late run on the rails and Strickland, the defending champion, needed just one win out of three matches on the final day, but lost the first two, putting himself under pressure to win the last, which he did.

The Filipino players will be well represented in the knock out draw. Efren Reyes leads the way with a perfect record of seven wins, with 35 racks won and only 18 lost. Reyes' record is only better by Canada's Alex Pagulayan who lost only 14 racks. Marlon Manalo, better known as a snooker star also notched seven straight wins, for the loss of 21 racks and the fourth player with a perfect record was Ralf Souquet, who also lost 21 racks.

QUALFIERS: DRAW

Group 1: Ying-Chief Chen, Jorge Llanos, Earl Strickland, Mark Williams

Group 2: Francisco Bustamente, Thomas Engert, Evgeny Stalev, Raymond Cruz

Group 3: Ralf Souquet, Max Eberle, Fabio Petroni, Alex Lely

Group 4: Efren Reyes, Sin-Young Park, Roxton Chapman, John Horsfall

Group 5: Marlon Manalo, Mika Immonen, Haruyoshi Hinokiyama, Pascal Budo

Group 6: Akikumo Toshikawa, Ching-Shun Yang, Teddy Garrahan, Mukesh Rehani

Group 7: Hui-Kai Hsia, Rico Diks, Sten Jarledal, Johnny Archer

Group 8: Satoshi Kawabata, Niels Feijen, Steve Knight, Ernesto Dominguez

Group 9: Steve Davis, Ramil Gallego, Warren Kiamco, Tony Drago

Group 10: Lee Vann Corteza, Cory Deuel, Young-Hwa Jeong, Kevin Smith

Group 11: Alex Pagulayan, Tommy Donlon, Danny Harriman, Shintao Sugaya

Group 12: Hiroshi Takenaka, Che-Wei Fu, Oliver Ortmann, Niclas Bergendorff