Defending champion Paul Hunter was the number 1 seed with World Champion Peter Ebdon seeded 2. 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 winner of the qualifying event, Mark Davis (ranked 37), and Steve Davis (ranked 25), who was the wild-card selection. Mark Davis, Quinten Hann and Joe Perry were making their debuts in the Masters.