Defending champion Hunter was the first seed with world champion O'Sullivan seeded second. Places were allocated to the top 16 players in the world rankings. Players seeded 15 and 16 played in the wild-card round against the two wild-card selections, Stephen Maguire (ranked 24) and Ding Junhui (ranked 76). Maguire had won the UK Championship the previous November and was making his Masters debut. Ding played seed 16 Marco Fu and won 6–4. Trailing 4–2 after Fu took the opening four frames with breaks of 100 and 57, Ding responded to win the next four frames with breaks of 50 and 77 in the seventh and eighth frames to win. Graeme Dott was 2–1 behind fellow Scot Maguire when he clinched five of the next seven frames with breaks of 98, 92, 83, 62 and 54 to win 6–4. It was Dott's first victory at the Wembley Conference Centre in his fourth Masters appearance.