2004 World Champions v Asia Stars Challenge

World Champions v Asia Stars Challenge

Tournament information
Dates	4–8 August 2004 (2004-08-04 – 2004-08-08)
Venue	BEC-Tero Hall
City	Bangkok
Country	Thailand
Organisation	110 Sports Management Group
Format	Non-ranking event
Highest break	John Higgins (103)
Final
Champion	Marco Fu
Runner-up	John Higgins
Score	5–1

The 2004 World Champions v Asia Stars Challenge was an invitational professional non-ranking snooker tournament which ran for one year.

This was, in effect, the same event as the Euro-Asia Masters Challenge which ran a season earlier but under a different name. This time, the field consisted of four world champions, Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, Ken Doherty and Mark Williams plus James Wattana, Ding Junhui, Marco Fu and up and coming Thai player, Atthasit Mahitthi. The format was the same with the players split into two round robin groups with the top two from each progressing to the semi-finals.^[1]

Results

Round-robin stage

Group A

POS Player MP MW ML FW FL FD PTS 1 Ding Junhui 3 2 1 8 6 +2 8 2 John Higgins 3 2 1 7 6 +1 7* 3 James Wattana 3 2 1 7 6 +1 7 4 Mark Williams 3 0 3 5 9 −4 5

Results: Ding Junhui 3–1 John Higgins James Wattana 3–1 Mark Williams John Higgins 3–1 James Wattana Ding Junhui 3–2 Mark Williams James Wattana 3–2 Ding Junhui John Higgins 3–2 Mark Williams

* John Higgins finished in the playoffs ahead of James Wattana due to winning their head to head match 3–1

Group B

POS Player MP MW ML FW FL FD PTS 1 Atthasit Mahitthi 3 3 0 9 1 +8 9 2 Marco Fu 3 2 1 6 5 +1 6 3 Stephen Hendry 3 1 2 3 6 −3 3 4 Ken Doherty 3 0 3 3 9 −6 0

Results: Atthasit Mahitthi 3–0 Marco Fu Atthasit Mahitthi 3–0 Stephen Hendry Marco Fu 3–0 Stephen Hendry Stephen Hendry 3–0 Ken Doherty Atthasit Mahitthi 3–1 Ken Doherty Marco Fu 3–2 Ken Doherty

Knock-out stage

	Semi-finals Best of 9 frames					Final Best of 9 frames
	Ding Junhui		4
	Marco Fu		5
						Marco Fu		5
						John Higgins		1
	Atthasit Mahitthi		2
	John Higgins		5

References