The snooker world's top players are in Beijing for this year's China Open, which starts on Monday.

The Beijing tournament is one of the major high-profile events that precede the World Snooker Championship in a few weeks' time. The China Open will feature 40 of the world's best players, including local star Ding Junhui, world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan and defending champion Stephen Maguire.

Shaun Murphy, 2008 China Open Runner-up, said, "I have been practising quite hard, but as we all know practice doesn't always mean a great deal and I am sure all the players have been practising very hard coming into this tournament, and we are all hoping to as well as possibly we can with the build-up to the World Championships just a few weeks away."

Stephen Hendry, 7-time World Championship Winner, said, "My form is not good, so I've had a bad season because I simply haven't played well enough. So, yes, she is right, yes, I am distracted."

World No.1 Mark Selby said, "Well, I think it's good times at the moment. There's a lot of great young players coming through. There's a lot of good Chinese players coming through with Liang Wenbo and everyone, and Peng Fei and obviously the likes of Judd Trump from England. So, a lot of young good players coming through, so I think it's good."

(CCTV March 30, 2009)