The draw for the group play of the 2011 United States National Snooker Championship has been made, which gets underway today at the Prince Snooker Club in Brooklyn, New York.

The number one seeded player is the twice and defending champion, Ahmed Aly Elsayed, and the local player from Brooklyn has been placed in Group A.

Aly has only ever lost one group match in a National Championship and that was to Chicago's Vaishal Talati at the Prince Snooker Club two years ago, and the luck of the draw will mean that he will have to face Talati again in the group this year.

The former United States National Snooker Champion Ajeya Prabhakar is the number two seeded player and placed in Group B. The Californian won three events on the USSA Tour this season and also was the runner-up to Aly at the Prince Snooker Club back in 2009. Prabhakar will have to contend with the five-times former champion Tom Kollins in his group, who was a quarterfinalist in last year's Championship at the Embassy Billiards Club.

New Jersey's Henry Wong, who has been a quarterfinalist at the past three Championships, is the number three seeded player and placed in Group C. Wong has narrowly been defeated 3-2 in the past two Championships, so going at least one better and a place in this year's semifinals will be his first goal.

Group D's number four seeded player is New York's Tim Lee who has been a quarterfinalist in this Championship over the past two years. Also drawn in the group is Alex Kopel, who recently competed for the United States in this year's European Snooker Chapionships in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

The full group draws are as follows:

Group A			Group B
Code	Player		Code	Player
A1	Ahmed Aly Elsayed (New York) 1		B1	Ajeya Prabhakar (California) 2
A2	Vaishal Talati (Illinois)		B2	Tom Kollins (Illinois)
A3	Charles Looney (Michigan)		B3	Kevin Wong (New York)
A4	Kashif Rashid (New York)		B4	Leo Lee (New York)
A5	Bye		B5	Bo Ye (New York)
A6	Tommy Chen (New York)		B6	Chen Yan Jun (New York)
Group C			Group D
Code	Player		Code	Player
C1	Henry Wong (New Jersey) 3		D1	Tim Lee (New York) 4
C2	Laszlo Kovacs (New York)		D2	Ahmed Mehaya (New York)
C3	Jerrol Cutler (Florida)		D3	Alex Kopel (California)
C4	Pravin Patel (Texas)		D4	Jonathan Royalty (North Carolina)
C5	Michael Chan (Cakifornia)		D5	Yan Y. Zhen (New York)
C6	Bye		D6	Ka Lai Cheung (New York)

All group matches are played over best-of-three frames, and will be completed by the end of play tomorrow evening.

The top four players from each of the four groups will advance into the Round Of 16.