Ding Junhui to team up with Xiao Guodong at Snooker World Cup 2015

BEIJING - Home favorites Ding Junhui and Xiao Guodong are top seeds of the Snooker World Cup 2015, as China won the last World Cup in 2011 when they beat Northern Ireland in the final in Thailand, according to the official website of World Snooker on Friday.

Mark Selby and Stuart Bingham, the last two world champions, make up a strong English team. John Higgins and Stephen Maguire will represent Scotland, while Mark Williams hopes to recover from a shoulder injury in time to play for Wales alongside Michael White. Australian pair Neil Robertson and Vinnie Calabrese will also be among the favorites.

World No. 37 Kurt Maflin will team up with his wife Anita Maflin for Norway.

The 24 teams will be divided into four groups of six teams, with each team to play five matches in the group stages. The top two teams in each group qualify for the knock-out stages. The format will be a combination of singles and doubles play.

The tournament will take place in the city of Wuxi in Jiangsu Province from June 15 to 21, with the two-man teams chasing a top prize of 200,000 US dollars from a total prize fund of 800,000 dollars.

The full group draw is below.

Group A

China A (Ding Junhui and Xiao Guodong)

Norway (Kurt Maflin and Anita Maflin)

Singapore (Marvin Lim Chun Kiatt and KK Chan)

India (Aditya Mehta and Pankaj Advani)

Malta (Tony Drago and Alex Borg)

Austria (Andrews Ploner and Paul Schopf)

Group B

Hong Kong of China (Marco Fu and Au Chi Wai)

Scotland (John Higgins and Stephen Maguire)

Iran (Hossein Vafaei Ayouri and Ehsan Heydari Nezhad)

Malaysia (Thor Chuan Leong and Mohd Reza Hassan)

Brazil (Igor Figueiredo and Itaro Santos)

Belgium (Luca Brecel and Thomas Skalski)

Group C

Australia (Neil Robertson and Vinnie Calabrese)

Wales (Mark Williams and Michael White)

Pakistan (Hamza Akbar and Muhammad Sajjad)

Qatar (Ahmed Saif and Ali Alobaidaly)

Poland (Mateusz Baranowski and Adam Stefanow)

Northern Ireland (Gerard Greene and Joe Swail)

Group D

England (Mark Selby and Stuart Bingham)

Republic of Ireland (Ken Doherty and Fergal O' Brien)

China B (Zhou Yuelong and Yan Bingtao)

Thailand (Dechawat Poomjaeng and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh)

UAE (Khalid Alkamali and Mohamed Shehab)

Germany (Lukas Kleckers and Felix Frede)