Sisters Anna and Erin Green are the top seeds at the Mark Bates Ltd Senior National Championships Qualifying Tournament as they bid to join their brother Connor at the Nationals ‘proper’.

Anna, who is Connor’s twin, takes the No 1 position in the Women’s Singles draw and Erin the No 2 slot for this weekend’s competition at the David Ross Sports Village in Nottingham.

There is a record entry for the tournament, with 136 male and 39 female players competing – knowing that a top-14 finish in their respective categories will seal a place alongside England’s elite for the Mark Bates Ltd Senior Nationals in March.

We will be live-streaming selected tables from the tournament on TTE.TV – the action starts at 9am on both Saturday and Sunday.

Click here to see the draw and other information in the event programme.

Anna and Erin Green will be looking for a repeat of last year’s tournament, when they both finished among the qualifiers – and both have made rankings progress in the last year and now top the seedings.

Their brother Connor was second in the qualifying tournament last year but does not need to qualify this time as he was among the top 16 players to receive an automatic invitation by virtue of their ranking.

The other top seeds in the Women’s Singles are Junior national champion Anaya Patel at No 3, one place ahead of Tiana Dennison. Sara Williams is the top-ranked player in the fifth and final group.

On the men’s side, Senior England international Darius Knight is the top seed, ahead of Shaquille Webb-Dixon, Umair Mauthoor and Cadet and Junior national champion Larry Trumpauskas.

Event format

The event will begin with group stages on the Saturday, played on a round-robin basis.

In the women’s competition, there are four groups of eight players and one group of seven. Seven players qualify from groups 1 and 2 and 6 players from groups 3, 4 and 5 – meaning a total of 32 players advance to the next stage.

In the men’s competition, there are 16 groups of eight players, with the top two in each group going through to Sunday – again, a total of 32 players.

Progressive knockout matches on Sunday will be played to a final list, for example players losing in the last 16 will play out for places 9-16 and so on.

The top 14 finishers in both the men’s and women’s singles at the tournament will qualify for the Mark Bates Ltd Senior National Championships at the same venue from Friday March 24 to Sunday March 26.