THREE star snooker players will be playing at Harrogate's Manhattan Club from tonight.

Willie Thorne, better known these days as a snooker commentator, former world No 3 Tony Knowles and former world doubles champion Mike Hallett, are among 160 players competing in the Challenge Tour.

The top eight players in the Challenge Tour at the end of the season gain promotion to the Main Tour. Thorne, who was in York last month working for television at the UK Championship, is joint 38th with Knowles after the first two events in the Challenge Tour season, while Hallett is 27th.

The Challenge Tour event in Harrogate starts today and is followed by Embassy World Championship pre-qualifying rounds beginning on January 13 and finish on January 22. The eight players who are unbeaten then go on to the first qualifying round proper at Telford on February 12.

Former world finalist Doug Mountjoy and former British Open runner-up Dean Reynolds are among those who will be playing. They need to win 12 matches to reach the Embassy final stages at The Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, in April.

Pickering's Paul Davison, who plays on the Main Tour, starts his world championship bid in Telford in February with a best of 19 frames first qualifying round match against Benson and Hedges tournament winner Hugh Abernethy.

Manhattan Club coach Steve Prest will be playing in the Challenge Tour and Embassy rounds at Harrogate. He is well down in the Challenge Tour order, in 120th place, because of coaching duties in Iceland with their national team and at the UK Championship in York last month.

Immediately after the world championship pre-qualifying tournament ends Prest will be jetting off the Thailand to conduct two weeks' coaching for World Snooker.

Updated: 12:24 Monday, January 07, 2002