Marco Fu
Defending champion John Higgins was the number 1 seed with World Champion Stephen Hendry 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, Ali Carter (ranked 142), and Marco Fu (ranked 35), who was the wild-card selection. Ali Carter, Marco Fu and Fergal O'Brien were making their debuts in the Masters.