tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53010263133683841272024-03-20T02:08:49.268-07:00Snooker ProseInexpert opinions and slipshod insights on professional snooker extemporaneously delivered to you at random intervals throughout the seasonRandall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-63410387769230306572012-11-30T13:00:00.001-08:002012-11-30T13:04:41.872-08:00Trump's Tumultuous Title Defence in York<br />
<i style="font-size: x-small;">There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 UK Championship, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">: </span><b style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_UK_Championship_(snooker)" target="_blank">2012 UK Championship</a></b><br />
<br />
Judd Trump's capture of the UK Championship this time last year was empirically impressive and after a rocky first-round encounter with a Dominic Dale and a deciding-frame triumph over Ronnie O'Sullivan in the last 16, he never really looked like losing. In the final, Mark Allen trailed Trump 8-3 before reeling off three centuries in four frames, plus a break of 95 to win the seventeenth and make it 9-8. On that occasion, it wasn't enough to beat Trump who mopped up the next to win 10-8, but you got the feeling that over a longer format, Allen's fightback was strong enough to come back and defeat most anyone in the game.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Judd Trump: </b>Bulgarian punani aficionado.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></i></div>
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This year, last year's finalist's are once again seeded in opposite halves of the draw, leaving the unlikely (though not unrealistic) chance of a repeat final. As ever though, the road to the final is paved with broken glass, land mines, carnivorous predators, pools of quicksand and a smattering of other dangerous obstacles capable of tripping up any player who thinks they can coast their way to one of snooker's finest pieces of silverware.<br />
<br />
You would be forgiven for backing Trump to win a second successive UK Championship at this year's event given his form of late--his ability to win on big occasions has been put through the wringer already this year and he is no longer just a front-runner who is difficult to catch up to, but a player who has already felt the sting of defeat from a winning position and been able to bounce back. He started the season imperiously, bringing his best when the major ranking events came along. A run to the final at the Shanghai Masters saw him surely set to win one after leading 7-2 at the end of the first session, but John Higgins staged a comeback for the ages, propelled on by a 147 whilst trailing and ultimately won 10-9. A bitter defeat for Trump no doubt and in the subsequent interviews at other events, when Higgins' name came up, you could see that Judd has immense respect for the Scot and perhaps even a little bit of fear. He would go on to defeat Neil Robertson 10-8 and win the inaugural International Championship in Chengdu, a victory for which he openly offered some attribution to the fact that Higgins fell at the first hurdle, losing 6-3 to Cao Yupeng.<br />
<br />
Full of confidence heading into the final PTC event at Gloucester's South West Snooker Academy, Judd once again met John Higgins in the final and was dismayed to lose 4-2, leading many to share in the opinion that Higgins may be the one nut too tough to crack for the Bristolian ball-basher. Determined to put the reputation to rest, Trump would meet him again in their third final of the season at the European Tour event in Bulgaria just days later and he duly trounced John Higgins 4-0. Though billed as the win he needed to put those demons to rest, the nature of the meetings between these two players has produced a unique rivalry that hardly had a shred of substance to it before Higgins won the 2011 World Championship and stopped Trump's seemingly unstoppable race to glory in its tracks with a cool 18-15 decision. The significance of the matches in which he has lost to Higgins still far outweighs his winning 4 frames in a row on one lone day in Bulgaria--surely, Trump is capable of winning four frames in a row against any player in the world at any time. I've underestimated Trump before, but I still don't think he has this matchup figured out and I also think a number of other players are more than capable of making life difficult on his title defence. Let's take a look, shall we?<br />
<br />
<b>Top Half</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Judd's road to victory sees him squaring off against Mark Joyce in the opening round, who has made it to the venue stage of the UK Championship for the second time in three attempts having defeated Jamie Cope in the final qualifying round. Incidentally, Joyce defeated Trump 9-7 in the second round as a qualifier in 2010 after Trump qualified and then beat the seeded Jamie Cope in his first-round match. However, the Judd of 2010 may as well have been a completely different player and few are picking Mark Joyce to cause another upset this time around.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Steve Davis: </b>Old.</td></tr>
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The veteran that never ceases to amaze with his tendency to still find himself under the TV lights in the world of pro snooker, Steve Davis has qualified for his 648th UK Championship and faces Ali Carter, whose potential meeting with Trump in the last 16 is most certainly a likely stumbling block in his title defense*. It's almost always a well-contested match between these two characters and I expect the trend to continue.<br />
<br />
Jack Lisowski makes his BBC event debut having just recently moved out from sharing flats with Trump and his reward is needing to defeat Stuart Bingham, newly-crowned Premier League champion. Form suggests that Bingham could meet Trump in the quarters, provided he can get through either Stephen Maguire or Fergal O'Brien.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Dott: </b>Armed with the will to win and a case of Irn-Bru.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></i></div>
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The other quarter in this half of the draw is where good ol' Graeme Dott makes an appearance and he's got a tough but winnable encounter with Martin Gould. When they last met in this competition, Dott came through a 9-5 victor and also defeated him 5-0 in the 6-Red World Championships in July. The winner of their bout faces either Shaun Murphy or Robert Milkins, the latter of whom has seen a very strong start to his season recording wins against Ryan Day, Andrew Higginson and a couple of wins over Judd Trump in both the third PTC event and the last 16 of the Wuxi Classic.<br />
<br />
Luca Brecel has also qualified for York by way of winning <u>four</u> matches against Scott Donaldson in a decider, Peter Lines, Liu Chuang and finishing it off with an impressive 6-1 drubbing of Peter Ebdon. Not unlike his qualifying run to the Crucible at the end of last season, Luca will be hoping to do one better at least and come out on top in his first-round clash with Wuxi Classic champion, Ricky Walden. Meanwhile, Mark Williams faces Mark King, where King interestingly leads the head-to-head record between them 7-6, his most recent triumph coming in the shape of a 5-1 win in the opening round of the World Open last season.<br />
<br />
<b>Bottom Half</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
If Mark Allen hopes to make a repeat appearance in the final, he will first have to get through Hong Kong's Marco Fu and the media has done a good job of highlighting the fact that Fu was one of several Chinese players specifically named by Allen in his controversial accusations of cheating following his Crucible loss to Cao Yupeng. Marco was reportedly quite taken aback by those accusations but will almost certainly refrain from letting it affect his game--Fu always approaches the table in the same calm, collected manner and so long as that is the case, his chances of beating any player in the game are never to be written off.<br />
<br />
One of those players will face the winner of the all-Welsh affair between Dominic Dale and Matthew Stevens. You would expect Matthew Stevens to come out on top here, but if the Spaceman can keep it close, all the pressure will be on Stevens to close out the match and I've seen him crumble from winning positions before.<br />
<br />
John Higgins will steamroll Michael Holt as he always does in ranking events and should therefore move on to face either Mark Davis or Cao Yupeng, an enticing opening round match as Davis takes advantage of being seeded 16th in the absence of Ronnie O'Sullivan and Stephen Lee. Yupeng is no stranger to causing upsets and I suspect the odds on this match come out about even anyway. If Cao is able to advance and topple Higgins in the second round, it sets up a potential meeting with Mark Allen in the quarters, just as they did at the Crucible and, more recently, in Chengdu where Allen determinedly recorded a 6-2 win.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Liang Wenbo: </b>Obviously drinks espresso between sessions.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></i></div>
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Tom Ford, fresh off a maximum break in Bulgaria, will be feeling pretty confident until Neil Robertson smacks him around a little bit and walks out a comfortable winner. I can't take anything away from Tom's skill, but he seems to have a tough time taking defeat on the abnormally-large chin. Neil should advance to face either Barry Hawkins (another beneficiary of the...err..."revised" Top 16) or Liang Wenbo, who showed a great deal of mettle in whitewashing Andrew Higginson 6-0 in the final qualifying round.<br />
<br />
Ding Junhui and Ryan Day also have a re-match on schedule after Ding's soul-crushing 10-9 defeat at the Crucible that left him a broken mess in the follow-up press conference, spitting hot fire at the unruly audience as though he were...um...a dragon? Anyway, he'll have to tune out the partisan crowd on this occasion and play at his best to survive this one while the winner will come through to face either Michael White or the "not-world-number-one-anymore-so-no-one-seems-to-be-paying-attention" Mark Selby. I'm surprised every time that Michael White wins a match, so I'm surprised to see him in York at all after beating Ken Doherty 6-3 in the qualifiers. Perhaps he'll finally show me something worth believing in, but so far, all I seem to hear is how awesomely talented he is and what great prospects he has for the future of the game--but then he'll go and lose to Chinese wildcards, or get whitewashed by guys like Alan McManus and Scott Donaldson (who?). Most recently, he was defeated 5-2 at the first time of asking in the German Masters qualifiers by Fraser Patrick (who?). Keep on truckin', Michael--perhaps you can take Selby to a decider, lose missing a sitter and join the punters' blacklist for the new year like Sam Baird.<br />
<br />
<b>Conclusion</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
I haven't a clue who will win this, but I'll tell you that Michael Holt and Tom Ford most certainly will not. Also, with a burst of evidence-free clairvoyance, I hereby declare that Ricky Walden will reach the quarterfinals for the second year running and Marco Fu will make a break of 141 at some point. What do these predictions mean for you!?? Nothing.<br />
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Behold! The 32-thread spool of sporting drama begins to unravel this weekend!<br />
<br />
P.S. I'm still pissed about these best-of-11 frame sprints for a title of such prestige...<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Haphazard Quarterfinalist Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<ul>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Judd Trump</span></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Stuart Bingham</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Ricky Walden</span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Shaun Murphy</span></i></i></span></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">John Higgins</span></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Matthew Stevens</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Barry Hawkins</span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Mark Selby</span></i></i></span></li>
</ul>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>PREDICTED WINNER: </i>Mark Selby</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>Moderately low. Meeting Trump in the semis makes it improbable.</span></div>
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<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">*Pedantic UK readers may notice that I freely alternate between spellings when it comes to "defence" and the American "defense" as though struggling to admit that one is more correct than the other. This is one of the many didactic consequences of being from Canada where the Commonwealth still dictates the majority of our language rules, but a shared border with the United States creates an obscure magnetic field that brainwashes us into the unshakable belief that certain American spellings are unequivocally correct. Resistance has proven futile--we understand that "colour" has a U in it, but we won't be caught dead spelling "recognize" with an S instead of a Z. Barring experimental brain surgery, you're just going to have to deal with that... </span><br />
<br />Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-14729219427729637022012-10-30T07:42:00.001-07:002012-10-30T07:43:10.112-07:00International Championship - Opening Rounds<i style="font-size: x-small;">There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 International Championship, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">: </span><b style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_International_Championship" target="_blank">2012 International Championship</a></b><br />
<br />
Well, since I did my initial write-up on this event, Ronnie O'Sullivan has pulled out of the event, Graeme Dott has indeed been beaten by Dominic Dale and the bold form of Stuart Bingham revealed in last week's premier league whitewashes over Selby and Robertson has been brought to a screeching halt as he trails India's Aditya Mehta 4-0. It is for these reasons, and many others over the years, that I only place monetary bets on snooker in sums no greater than $1.00 apiece.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Dott:</b> The draw's really opening up for--oh, wait...<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></span></div>
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Turning to the matter of O'Sullivan, I understand that he's pulled out of this event <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/snooker/20097208" target="_blank">for health reasons</a> after completing several Snooker Legends exhibitions over the last several weeks in apparently quite able-bodied shape. The only thing predictable about Ronnie's behaviour has become his sheer unpredictability and though I wouldn't explicitly call him out on being too ill to travel in this particular case, but the sudden decision is somewhat suspect and will leave many fans disappointed.<br />
<br />
When I first read the story though, I was less surprised than I was excited for Graeme Dott, who was slated to meet Ronnie in the second round. Dott has seen a bit of form returning now that the season has really gotten going and I expected him to be able to come through against Dominic Dale in the first round. However, Dale is quite unpredictable and he's looked like beating many players ranked well above him at ranking events over the last couple of seasons. Normally, he can't quite get over the line as he demonstrated in his two recent first-round meetings with Judd Trump, but in Chengdu, he disposed of Graeme Dott quite handily and played so well that I can't even be too disappointed. His safety in the ninth and final frame kept Dott tied in knots and it was clear that Dominic Dale had no intention of playing a tenth, effectively quelling a signature Scottish fightback before it could even really get started.<br />
<br />
That section of the draw has gotten a little strange as 14 year-old Lu Haotian, who entered as a wild card and defeated his second successive qualifier in a deciding frame to enter the main draw with a 6-5 win over Welshman Michael White. White continues to reaffirm his membership in my honourary Bottleless & Overhyped Tour Player Club alongside the likes of Sam Baird, but I don't mean to suggest that he should've necessarily had this win because Lu Haotian is a bit of a scary young player who seems to play with no fluctuations in expression or emotion whatsoever. So it'll be Lu Haotian vs. Dominic Dale in what should've been Dott-O'Sullivan and frankly, I don't know if I can back Dale in this contest in spite of his excellent performance to knock out Graeme.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Stephen Maguire: </b>Might be due for a win.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></span></div>
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The winner of that contest will face either Neil Robertson or Matthew Stevens. Stevens was given a right scare against the Zhao Xintong yesterday who, trailing 4-1, fought back to force a decider after also winning the decider against Ken Doherty in the wild card round. Marco Fu was involved in another deciding frame before coming out on top against Martin Gould and will move on to face Mark Davis who caused a bit of a shock by defeating Mark Williams 6-4 for the first time I can recall in a major ranker since the 1995 World Championship qualifying competition.<br />
<br />
Most of the other rounds have gone according to plan, with Mark Allen beating Robert Milkins 6-2, Stephen Maguire winning 6-3 using his ample experience playing Jamie Burnett over the years to come through quite easily and Mark Selby setting the tone with a 6-3 win over Ali Carter. Shaun Murphy shut out Andrew Higginson 6-0 in the only whitewash of the Last 32 in a match that was terribly one-sided in more ways than just the scoreline, reminiscent of his 5-0 win in the Brazil Masters final over Graeme Dott last season.<br />
<br />
If Stuart Bingham is unable to come back against Aditya Mehta today, that will still only be the second-biggest shock on the drawsheet as the Crucible conqueror of Mark Allen claimed another big scalp in Chengdu. Cao Yupeng has eliminated John Higgins 6-3 yesterday and will continue to move up the rankings inevitably if these kinds of results keep coming in on his side. Other matches yet to come to a close today include Judd Trump, who looks good to progress against Fergal O'Brien as he currently holds a 5-3 lead. Meanwhil, Lu Ning, another victorious wildcard who won a marathon match (in yet another deciding frame) to send Barry Pinches back home, trails Ricky Walden 3-2 in a match that doesn't seem to be moving very fast either.<br />
<br />
Now then, let's revise these predictions:<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Haphazard Semifinalist Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<ul>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Neil Robertson</span></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Marco Fu</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Mark Allen</span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Stephen Maguire</span></i></i></span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>PREDICTED WINNER: </i>Stephen Maguire</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>Kill me.</span></div>
</div>
Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-35935861234228757322012-10-23T11:29:00.000-07:002012-10-23T11:30:13.744-07:00The Other Other Big One - To Chengdu!<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 International Championship, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i>: <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_International_Championship" target="_blank">2012 International Championship</a></b></span><br />
<br />
For as long as I have known, the World Championship at the Crucible has been the flagship event in professional snooker, while the UK Championship in December is often hailed as the second-biggest tournament of the year. Definitely a fair argument, as the whole of the tournament (including qualifiers) was played over a best-of-17 frames, with the final contested over 19. It is the sort of match that I love to become engrossed in and the scarcity of these longer formats in the modern game makes it all the more exciting when the holiday season rolls around.<br />
<br />
However, in what I view as Barry Hearn's most unsavoury adjustment to the sport at large, the UK Championship rounds have been reduced to a mere best-of-11 frames, leaving it barely distinguishable from the myriad best-of-9 ranking events that occupy a second tier of significance and prestige on the snooker calendar. Many of the players agree that this was not the right move, but the end result is that the new International Championship in China starting next week, which carries precisely the same best-of-11 format, is being billed as the next biggest major of the season with a similarly husky prize purse of £600,000 on offer. I don't want to get too deep into it here, but I do think the length of the matches ought to reflect the prizes on offer a little more closely than they do under the new system.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Barry Hearn</b>: Time is money, friend.</td></tr>
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A best-of-11 is not a terribly short match, but it's short enough that it doesn't take something extraordinary for the better player to lose and it seems to me that when a lot of money is up for grabs, the best player should win. Particularly with Hearn's plan to eliminate ranking points altogether and seed players based on how much money they win over the course of a season come 2014. I'll probably write a separate post ranting about that later on, but the crux of my objection is that a money-based ranking system means that you would have to win FOUR Welsh Opens to earn the "ranking dollars" equal to winning ONE International Championship--and the format of the tournaments are not exactly all that different.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, with all of the good Barry Hearn has brought to the game, it's difficult to admonish his forthcoming misgivings too loudly and it seems clear that the direction he is going is unlikely to change. So, with that, I will begrudgingly treat the new International Championship as a big deal and I will begrudgingly pretend that the UK Championship carries all the esteemed prominence it has in the past, whilst muttering curse words under my breath as I watch the criminal injustice of Graeme Dott running out of frames in the midst of staging a late comeback during one of these so-called "majors". *deep breath*<br />
<br />
<i>The Draw</i><br />
In the top quarter of the draw, we see a familiar name in the form of world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, entering a major ranking event for the first time since signing the players' contract and deciding that there was enough cash on offer to justify boarding a plane to China. The only other sign of Ronnie all season was a 4-3 defeat to Simon Bedford at PTC3 which he clearly didn't take too seriously if you watched his recklessly aggressive shot selections unfold. Ronnie will play the winner of a wildcard round between the Welsh underachiever Michael White and the recent conqueror of Marco Fu at the Shanghai Masters, 14 year-old Lu Haotian. I suspect he'll steamroll either of them, despite the assertions of some pundits that Ronnie might be a little rusty--poppycock, I say! Balderdash!<br />
<br />
Unfortunately for Graeme Dott, he will likely face O'Sullivan if he is able to come through his first-round tie with Dominic Dale and although Dott is certainly capable of winning, it's tough to back him when Ronnie is expected to come back to the baize hungrier than usual. The good news for Dott (or at least Dott fans such as myself) is that he'll almost certainly be on a televised table--or he could lose to the Spaceman, I guess...<br />
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Also in this Welsh-heavy section of the draw is Matthew Stevens, who I haven't seen play all that well in quite some time and may be in tough against Ken Doherty, wildcard permitted. Ryan Day faces Neil Robertson in another match fit for television. I would bet on Neil Robertson to win by a couple of frames at least and likely move on to eventually meet Ronnie in the quarters--but hey, it doesn't take a genius to come up with that prediction.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Marco Fu:</b> Reppin' for Deroo Cues in Chengdu.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></div>
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India's Pankaj Advani, who had to fight through four rounds of qualifying to make it to the International Championship, disappointingly decided to withdraw after the fact in order to compete in the World Billiards Championship in Leeds. The result is that the second quarter of the draw will feature a Chinese wildcard squaring off against Ding Junhui in the opening round. I don't know much about Zhou Yuelong, but if Ding can't win this match, he may never be favoured to win again in China. I wholly expect him to lose to Shaun Murphy in the last 16. Marco Fu and Martin Gould will be engaged in what I imagine will be an entertaining match for the chance to face either Mark Davis or Mark Williams, the winner of which will have a chance to "mar" the record of Murphy in the quarters if I'm right.<br />
<br />
The bottom half has some interesting permutations, including five of the eight wildcards, of which I don't think any have much of a chance of progressing. I don't think anyone's picking Fergal O'Brien to dump Trump, Barry Pinches is going to have a hard time with Ricky Walden, Jamie Burnett's good run of form isn't enough to convince me he can beat Stephen Maguire over 11 frames and who can back Cao Yupeng against John Higgins? India's other representative, Aditya Mehta, faces Stuart Bingham if he can get through the wildcard round, and I sure hope he does given that he had the sense to at least board the plane and play in this tournament rather than spend his week stringing together 800 nursery cannons to an audience of two dozen sleeping bystanders.<br />
<br />
Mark Allen, fresh off his win in Antwerp, faces Robert Milkins in his first-round fixture, the winner likely to progress to face John Higgins. You have to favour Allen, but I still feel Milkins is waiting in the wings to produce something big and this might be his best opportunity. Meanwhile, Mark Selby faces Ali Carter and assuming that Stephen Lee's sudden suspension from the tour despite a lack of hard evidence holds up, Peter Ebdon will get a walkover to face Stephen Maguire. They last met at the China Open final, which Ebdon won in characteristic fashion by pulling the pot off the boil and letting the match coagulate into a murky, nine-hour advertisement for how not to sell a sport to the masses. Although a deciding frame is never a surprise in a match featuring Peter Ebdon, I don't think he's going to get away with this one.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Stuart Bingham: </b>India's worst nightmare.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></div>
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So where are the upsets at this inaugural International Championship? No tournament is complete without a few, so I'll take a crack at who isn't going to win when they are probably expected to. Firstly, I don't think this will be Judd Trump's tournament and I expect him to either lose to Stuart Bingham early, or possibly to either Mark Allen or John Higgins in the quarters. I also don't think Mark Williams is going to make very much headway as he is lined up for a variety of tough matches no matter what happens in elsewhere in the draw. Even Mark Davis has the game to beat Williams on his day. Ding's record in China has begun to speak for itself, so it's hard to even call it an upset when he loses early in his own country. Stephen Maguire almost always plays well, but I'm not sure he'll get through Mark Selby in his quarter either.<br />
<br />
The semi-finals are played over a best-of-17 frames, so at least enthusiastic viewers who appreciate a real match get a handful of these multi-session spectacles and this is where it's hard not to pick Ronnie to breeze into another final. There aren't many contenders in his section of the draw that are likely to beat him over 17 frames. The bottom half is somewhat less certain with Trump, Higgins, Mark Allen, Stephen Maguire and Mark Selby all possible contenders. It seems like it's been awhile since we've seen a good Selby-O'Sullivan final and that's what I'm counting on--there's plenty of room for upsets early in the tournament, but I'm backing the top two seeds to make the final.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Haphazard Quarterfinalist Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<ul>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Ronnie O'Sullivan</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Neil Robertson</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Shaun Murphy</span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Marco Fu</i></span></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Stuart Bingham</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">John Higgins</span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Stephen Maguire</span></i></i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Mark Selby</span></i> </i></span></li>
</ul>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>PREDICTED WINNER: </i>Ronnie O'Sullivan</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>An unfortunately small amount. If he can somehow make the semi-finals, then maybe I'll start getting excited.</span></div>
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<br />Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-10701302786688754982012-09-26T07:57:00.001-07:002012-09-26T07:57:57.474-07:00John Higgins - Like a BOSS<i style="font-size: x-small;">There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 Shanghai Masters, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">: </span><b style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Shanghai_Masters" target="_blank">2012 Shanghai Masters</a></b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>John Higgins</b>: The CEO of bottle.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></i></div>
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After John Higgins won the 2011 World Championship, defeating Judd Trump 18-15 from 7-10 down after the first day's play, Steve Davis pronounced him the greatest of all time--a statement that seemed rife with the heat of the moment, swayed by the tension of a close final and drew a bit of criticism for perhaps putting the cart before the horse. Although there are few true snooker fans that wouldn't put Higgins into the conversation for greatest of all time, most end up conceding that subjective title of ultimate prestige to Stephen Hendry for his tremendous record, or to Ronnie O'Sullivan, for his tremendous talent.<br />
<br />
However, as one commentator (Phil Yates, I think--possibly Neal Foulds) pointed out, Hendry was a master of attacking snooker and, if faced with the prospect of a slower, more tactical frame, he would often become bogged down with the leaden pace of a more defensive contest, clearly less comfortable and less likely to win if the style of snooker wasn't to his liking. O'Sullivan is not dissimilar, but his patience for tactical frames seems to be more closely related to his psychological state than his disdain for any particular sort of snooker. We know that when Ronnie is on song, his safety is as good as anyone's and he can generally pot his way out of trouble and outscore his opponents before a tactical frame gets too drawn out. But John Higgins is armed with unmatched versatility in the game and it is that versatility that likely prompted Steve Davis's comments a little over a year ago.<br />
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Fluency in scoring is what paved the way for what appeared to be a smooth road to Judd Trump's third ranking title at the Shanghai Masters on the weekend and the sweet taste of revenge following his Crucible defeat to Higgins. When Trump led 5-0, he had out-scored John Higgins 510-78, with 50 of Higgins' points only coming in the fifth after Judd had knocked in 59 at the first available opportunity. The first sign of life from John came in the sixth frame with the sixth maximum break of his career. Surely there is no better way to pull a frame back in a match that seems to be getting away from you than to hit a 147. That said, it appeared to be a flash in the pan, as Judd took the next to lead 6-1 and finished the day with a healthy 7-2 lead, complete with commentators stressing how important it was for John to win that ninth frame, forever promulgating the significant difference between a five-frame gap and a gap of only three.<br />
<br />
I don't know how it happened, but John Higgins came out for the second session ready to boss the table around and didn't seem to have much of an idea about the scoreline. He calmly and coolly made a more-than-enough 89 break in one visit to close the gap to 7-3. Then, with a visit in which he racked up 74 points in frame 11, it was 7-4. Then a break of 48 and a 30 in the twelfth made it 7-5. It was only then that Judd Trump began to sweat in his chair, having squandered the five-frame lead. Though still ahead, Higgins did not leave him a shot, which is no mean feat against the likes of Trump. A 76 break won John Higgins the thirteenth frame and a 71 brought the match all the way back from a one-sided best-of-19 affair, to a tense race to 3 frames for the title.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Judd Trump sweating bullets and missing table time.<br /><div style="text-align: right;">
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></i></div>
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At 7-7, when a scrappy fifteenth frame ended on the black, which Higgins ultimately doubled into the corner pocket with unwavering confidence, the writing was on the wall. Give Judd credit for a stunning century break to draw level at 8-8, but when he next came back to the table, he was 64-0 down with 67 on. He had two chances to clear up and win it, the second culminating in a missed black off the spot that left him needing two snookers and, more significantly, he returned to his chair dejected and red-faced with self-deprecation. At 9-8, it became a war of attrition--an endurance test of emotion. In these tense environments, you bet against John Higgins at your own peril. The start of frame 18 was loaded with trepidation and apprehension in the performance's of both players and it was clearly no one would win it in a single visit. Each safety that left John Higgins a long red resulted in Judd shaking his head and fearing the worst.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">2012 Shanghai Master Champion</span><br /><div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo by Monique Limbos</i></span></div>
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He led the frame by seven points with one red remaining and maturely refused a pot in favour of playing a snooker in behind the yellow. Higgins played a heavy swerve shot to escape and the red rebounded off the black into the pocket for another body blow. A three-cushion cocked-hat double on the yellow several shots later looked like the end for Trump. As luck would have it (as it so often does in these circumstances), Trump was able to pull a very challenging frame out of the fire after Higgins went in-off on the pink, needing only it and the black to win the title. However, a decider was on the cards and by then, Judd was a bag of nerves, still able to knock in a long red by itself, but when it came to stringing together a frame-winning break, he was running slightly out of position throughout the visit and it came to an end at 36. His safety left John Higgins a long red and, with absolute aplomb, he cued it into the centre of the top left corner and made 61 for the match. Unbelievable.<br />
<br />
It is these performances and the fact that he has demonstrated this sort of comeback before that makes him among the greatest. In 2010, Higgins also trailed 2-7, and then 5-9, to Mark Williams and won the last five frames of the UK Championship to defeat him 10-9. More than a string of historical comebacks and a trophy case of accolades, John Higgins is also just a great player to watch. He doesn't have the flare and box office appeal of other players and for that reason, he may not be as entertaining on the basis of any one frame. However, to appreciate John Higgins, you have to see him in a match situation.<br />
<br />
Watch t<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmBF61Ofkx0&t=1h24m10s" target="_blank">his lengthy sequence of safety shots</a> as Mark Allen is left needing snookers to draw their Premier League match. As they play one excellent safety after another, the tension in the arena builds and this is a great example of what professional snooker is all about and why I love it so. It's also another fine example of the unshakable composure of John Higgins and his relentless grip on the match which he absolutely refuses to let go of.<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
When he finally pots the green, that seals it and we know the match is over. However, John Higgins also knows the rules and just to assert his dominance, he drains the long brown right into the heart of the pocket and does the same to blue and pink as if there was no chance of ever missing them. What's that, Mark? You want to play on needing three snookers on the brown? Too bad. Pop-pop-pop! Like a BOSS. </div>
Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-8500510689020895572012-09-20T07:40:00.001-07:002012-09-25T08:54:39.208-07:00Last 16 in Shanghai - From deciding frames to decisive victories<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 Shanghai Masters, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i>: <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Shanghai_Masters" target="_blank">2012 Shanghai Masters</a></b>
</span><br />
<br />
In the first couple of days in Shanghai, the results have been good for the bookmaker's with a couple of big upsets and a surprising number of ninth-frame thrillers. We saw Stuart Bingham buckle down with a 5-4 win over Tom Ford after leading 4-2 and Dominic Dale put in a solid performance coming back from the same scoreline only to ultimately lose the decider to Shaun Murphy. Three of the wildcard matches went to deciding frames, most notably the match involving Marco Fu who was ousted from the competition by recent IBSF Under-21 world champion Lu Haotian, who is only 14 years old and potted 9 reds and blacks in the final frame. Jin Long, a former professional who was relegated from the tour, ruined Jimmy Robertson's chance to get into the main draw after battling his way through qualifiers, again 5-4. Robert Milkins just scraped through his wildcard bout against Zhou Yuelong, plus Ryan Day was pushed to the final frame before securing a victory against Martin Gould having led 3-0.<br />
<br />
But that's not all! How about Steve Davis, trailing 4-1 to Ricky Walden but then winning three on the spin to prove he can still mix it up with some of the best at the tender age of 209. As mentioned in my previous article, Ding Junhui couldn't close out the match despite leading 3-0 and 4-3 and lost a deciding frame to Mark King. Finally, Robert Milkins would go on to lose yet another deciding frame to Ali Carter, meaning that he came to Shanghai, played 18 frames and still lost in the first round.<br />
<br />
But after a series of close contests just to decide the last 16, the second round has proven to be a bit of a different story, with not only a handful of severe beatings to report, but several severe beatings that have gone in favour of the underdog--similar to Jamie Cope's first round slaparound that took out Mark Selby.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Cope would lose decisively to Stuart Bingham, 5-1, which is not as much of a surprise as his appearance in the second round to begin with. John Higgins, who has been repeatedly written off and appears to be "out of form" in every match he plays these days, duly whitewashed Ryan Day 5-0. He will meet Ali Carter, who somehow managed to sweep Stephen Maguire clean off the table by the same 5-0 score. This has to be demoralizing for Maguire who was quoted as saying that he underestimated his opponent after losing the Crucible semi-final to Carter back in spring. Surely he hasn't underestimated him again?<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtXduF9MKcZ_AamAA9d-ixrrlBCuau1bF4tNOGlD0kD0jfq_jmJXBzuOoXErpXSajski4suCgU6Nuw7wVj_ttoHyDZPM7vYyV0Cah3pWDKthZfu3S0sXEYUYphDaio6cs_wNIVp1TUmTg/s1600/alicarter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtXduF9MKcZ_AamAA9d-ixrrlBCuau1bF4tNOGlD0kD0jfq_jmJXBzuOoXErpXSajski4suCgU6Nuw7wVj_ttoHyDZPM7vYyV0Cah3pWDKthZfu3S0sXEYUYphDaio6cs_wNIVp1TUmTg/s320/alicarter.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Ali Carter:</b> Regularly underestimated.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo by Monique Limbos</i></span></div>
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</tbody></table>
Mark Williams had little trouble dispatching Ricky Walden 5-2 and he will meet, in the most shocking result of the tournament so far, Joe Perry, who trounced Neil Robertson 5-0! Since winning the Masters and then being outclassed by Ronnie at the Crucible, Neil Robertson hasn't quite looked the same but I expect he'll come around and win something this year. To be shut out entirely by Joe Perry is a complete surprise to me, though--it's raining locusts in Shanghai, boils are popping up all over the faces of the officiating staff, the end is nigh.<br />
<br />
Of course, the best news of the day came when I woke up this morning to discover Graeme Dott leading Stephen Lee 2-0. A poor record of 2 wins and 9 losses against Lee for Graeme was a dark omen, but then the lead became 3-0...then 4-0 at the interval. Dott is not the type of player I would ever expect to collapse from 4-0 up in a best-of-9 and would eventually come through a 5-1 winner in yet another decisive victory. Graeme meets the winner of Mark Allen and Judd Trump, who are now throwing figurative hands in the seventh frame with Allen trailing 4-2. Either match will be a tough quarterfinal for Dott, but there aren't exactly a lot of easy matches in the last 8 of a ranking event these days and you often do have to get through Trump to win big.<br />
<br />
Nine matches went to deciding frames in the first round, including the wildcards, while in the second round, we've seen three 5-0 victories, and two matches finish at 5-1. Judd Trump has now finished off Mark Allen 5-2 and so, the result of Shaun Murphy and Mark King is all that's left to be decided for the quarterfinalists. John Higgins will meet Ali Carter, Joe Perry plays Mark Williams, Dott is stuck with Judd and Murphy or King will play Stuart Bingham.<br />
<br />
This weekend, the <b>2012 Alberta Snooker Championship</b>, the provincial championship held in Canada gets underway and I'll be busy running the show, so that's all I've got to say on the subject of this year's Shanghai Masters.<br />
<br />
Unless Graeme wins it of course, in which case I'll likely mention it a couple of times throughout the season.Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-54954507297172496292012-09-18T09:09:00.004-07:002012-09-25T08:54:47.672-07:00Defeat - A meal fit for a Ding<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 Shanghai Masters, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i>: <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Shanghai_Masters" target="_blank">2012 Shanghai Masters</a></b></span><br />
<br />
There was a time when I believed that Ding Junhui would be the first world champion of Asian descent, but it seems to me that his rise to stardom in the throes of the bombastic promotion of Chinese snooker in his homeland has only hurt his chances of rising all the way to the top. As more and more events are being staged in China, more and more deciding frame defeats and embarrassing losses to lesser players seem to be floating Ding's way. When I watch him play against top players, it's often difficult to pick a winner--but I can't remember the last time I watched Ding Junhui play a first-round match against an unseeded player, confident that he would come through with a win.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaBKqkWv2HWU5XpYpVdr9Ax4NeLzRxyIMGfRyQIMdRWwkxcJ5mEpueZLOH3mCkcIvWy0mDjUxbBbkndzr2m758vWn7bwptbB0LUoVKdy45WAjMhyphenhyphenhtNx3YaTplpKuGjW3kj5xcpeGWtiM/s1600/ding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaBKqkWv2HWU5XpYpVdr9Ax4NeLzRxyIMGfRyQIMdRWwkxcJ5mEpueZLOH3mCkcIvWy0mDjUxbBbkndzr2m758vWn7bwptbB0LUoVKdy45WAjMhyphenhyphenhtNx3YaTplpKuGjW3kj5xcpeGWtiM/s320/ding.jpg" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Ding Junhui:</b> What the f----<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></i></div>
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As I type this up, Ding has squandered a 3-0 lead on Mark King and now trails by 12 points in the final frame, the match now level at 4-4. Whether he wins or not, Ding's performance has been extremely dodgy and, though I mean no disrespect to Mark King, there's no excuse for someone with Ding's pedigree to be playing with such an apparent lack of confidence and an unmistakable air of frustration. He's just attempted a reckless shot on the thinnest of possible reds that has almost certainly cost him the match and only barely resembles the player that struck fear into the hearts of the whole British Empire only a few years ago.<br />
<br />
Mark King has never beaten Ding Junhui before today and more recently, he has also been beaten in the opening round by Mark Davis 5-2 in Wuxi, was crushed at the first hurdle by compatriot wildcard Jin Long 5-1 back at the World Open, lost to Peter Ebdon in both the China Open and in Australia, and was even eliminated from the German Masters by Yu Delu 5-3 in possibly the worst performance of his career--again, in the first round. As of late, commentators have spoken of his poor record in China, but while his talent can't be disputed, his record against lower-ranked opposition in general hasn't exactly been glowing with the same sort of luster of, say, the top 5--which he was recently a part of.<br />
<br />
Couple that with the air of frustration I mentioned and you start to see a player on the decline. He received a light slap on the wrist for saying "fuck" at the press conference for his deciding frame loss to Ryan Day at the World Championship, which was little more than a dejected-looking Ding who seemed keen to blame his loss on the Sheffield crowd despite sparse evidence that the audience was at all partisan or uncharacteristically and unreasonably unruly for the excitement of a Crucible decider. Since then, he always seems to be pointing fingers at the crowd and finding excuses to lose matches he should be winning. It's almost as though he just can't handle the pressure.<br />
<br />
It's weird to see a top snooker player get so far up in the game and then suffer from the sort of behaviour that typically prevents players from ever reaching the top, but I really think we might just be seeing Ding Junhui on a premature decline. At this rate, any number of players from China's growing snooker conglomerate might don the Crucible crown before Ding does.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Haphazard Semi-finalist Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"></span>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Stuart Bingham</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Stephen Maguire</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Mark Williams </i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Graeme Dott</i></li>
</span></ul>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>PREDICTED WINNER: </i>Mark Williams</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>It's really all contingent on Mark Allen beating Judd Trump.</span></div>
Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-27478463841719470672012-09-05T07:48:00.001-07:002012-09-25T08:55:18.672-07:00PTC3 - Gloucester's second-to-last hurrah<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 PTC3 Event, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i>: <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Players_Tour_Championship_2012/2013_%E2%80%93_Event_3" target="_blank">Players Tour Championships - Event 3</a></b></span><br />
<br />
The highlight of the penultimate PTC event to be held at Gloucester's South West Snooker Academy for the forseeable future is, in the minds of most snooker fans, the return of Ronnie O'Sullivan. As per usual, he successfully stole most of the headlines in major newspapers this season without even picking up a cue by refusing to sign the players' contract and probably threatening to retire a few times--or was that last year? The year before? I don't know, I've lost count.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMQRdWtkVhf8laEicLNkllgDGfEUvBp6tVeZKz5I8CUhDuekDb5AaDDc0QULf_hMbTrE1yL2oZUM1CWfSsBRtd9rbDLtaKz9jCiiTzxCrpO3wqCFt5jYifQqAOmJ9tcSOsn4FcvXDtOb8/s1600/yudelu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMQRdWtkVhf8laEicLNkllgDGfEUvBp6tVeZKz5I8CUhDuekDb5AaDDc0QULf_hMbTrE1yL2oZUM1CWfSsBRtd9rbDLtaKz9jCiiTzxCrpO3wqCFt5jYifQqAOmJ9tcSOsn4FcvXDtOb8/s320/yudelu.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Yu Delu:</b> Not Ronnie O'Sullivan.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></div>
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Because I follow the game a little more closely than the Daily Mail sports columnists, the exploits of the ever-mysterious O'Sullivan are a little drab for me and frustratingly repetitive when all I really want to see him do is play snooker. I liken them to the discussions in Canada surrounding the collective bargaining agreement amongst professional ice hockey players and team owners in the NHL. Locally, with the threat of hockey players being locked out at the start of the season looming, <a href="http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/nhl/article/1249249--nhl-labour-talks-to-resume-friday" target="_blank">these kinds of stories</a> dominate the sports coverage of most news outlets, despite having very little to do with sports. So, whether Ronnie plays or not is of no consequence to me--though I'd prefer it if he did, just as I would prefer to see the hockey season start on time. What the suits behind closed-doors do that lead up to these predilections isn't why I watch sports.<br />
<br />
In any case, it's irrelevant--Ronnie is in the draw and presumably will show up (though nothing is promised) and power his way to the quarter-finals at least. He doesn't ever seem to suffer from a lack of match practice as Ding Junhui and John Higgins seem to have done this year. His draw is quite favourable compared to some other top-16 players and many might expect him to meet Neil Robertson in the Last 16--however, Robertson hasn't been particularly impressive in this season's PTC events as of yet.<br />
<br />
Looking at the rest of the draw, I'm hoping to see Marco Fu make some noise if he can topple the current Order of Merit leader Stephen Maguire in a rough opening-round draw, but he's got some tough opponents in that quarter afterwards as well including Luca Brecel, Mark Williams, Matthew Stevens, Ryan Day, Ricky Walden <i>and </i>Xiao Guodong--phew!<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikBnimAnbtqCuSxbnRIqLUPRpwtoJl24yjp90yByVGjxIBUQao3fRIIWXupkxYmiddg5qFaqDQN64T3C8LFboj6ny7neWzg8F3bWXzJQiPMCjHxupE9uBlTFCz81dHatTQ5_WVmMfYKnc/s1600/graemedott3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikBnimAnbtqCuSxbnRIqLUPRpwtoJl24yjp90yByVGjxIBUQao3fRIIWXupkxYmiddg5qFaqDQN64T3C8LFboj6ny7neWzg8F3bWXzJQiPMCjHxupE9uBlTFCz81dHatTQ5_WVmMfYKnc/s320/graemedott3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Graeme Dott: </b>Will win 2 or 3 matches this time, goddammit.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Graeme Dott has finally been awarded an easier start to this campaign than the downright ugly draws he was facing in earlier PTCs as he takes on Ian Burns for the right to face the winner of Andrew Higginson and Q School newbie Chen Zhe. Also in the second section, Jimmy White is going to have to stop Aditya Mehta's solid run of form to make any headway and Sam Baird, who it seems still hasn't recovered from <a href="http://youtu.be/bmlEJdhw0ds" target="_blank">nearly beating Mark Selby</a> at the Welsh Open, may well be on a slide down the rankings as he faces Michael White. The third section features the likes of Barry Hawkins, who I'm sure will defeat Tony Drago and I actually expect him to beat Shaun Murphy as well. If so, I would expect him to meet Jamie Burnett, who has also had a solid start this season, in the Last 16. This would probably set up a quarterfinal with Judd Trump, whom Barry has beaten in deciding frames in their last two meetings. That would bode well for Dott--but I'm getting ahead of myself.<br />
<br />
Trump is likely to stroll through his section--who he will face in the Last 16 is a matter of speculation, but I'd be betting on Mark Davis to continue playing the best snooker of his life. Alfie Burden, who made a surprise run to the semi-finals at the last event in Gloucester, will square off against last year's <a href="http://www.snookerbacker.com/2012/02/24/snookerbacker-classic-finals-day/" target="_blank">Snookerbacker Classic</a> winner Martin O'Donnell for the right to face (likely) John Higgins. Down in the seventh quarter, Mark Allen, who I haven't seen much of this year, looks to be probably facing Ken Doherty in the Last 64. With Ken fresh off his first maximum in Germany, I do hope he can bring home a victory for the Irish Republic.<br />
<br />
Then, down at the bottom end, it looks like another straightforward handful of ranking points for Mark Selby, who doesn't really have any serious threats in the draw as he will look to continue piling on to the stranglehold lead he has at the world number one spot. Over seven frames, Dominic Dale might be able to topple Selby...but probably not.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Haphazard Quarterfinalist Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<ul>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Mark Williams</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Graeme Dott</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Barry Hawkins</span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Judd Trump</i></span></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Stephen Lee</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Ronnie O'Sullivan</span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Michael Holt</span></i></i></span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Mark Selby</span></i> </i></span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>PREDICTED WINNER: </i>Mark Selby</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>Trace amounts of hope--tough quarterfinals if it all goes the way I see it. </span></div>
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Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-82702074897737389242012-08-21T09:31:00.003-07:002012-09-05T06:16:11.317-07:00August Calendar CrunchIt's not even September and the snooker calendar is full enough to keep journalists covering the sport employed full-time--I'm thankful to be a volunteer. Since I last piped up from the peanut gallery, Stephen Maguire ousted Graeme Dott in the cruel first-round draw of PTC2 and went on to appear in his second successive Players Tour Championship final, falling at the last hurdle to Martin Gould who is no doubt happy to have won something with a little more substance than his *ahem* coveted Power Snooker crown from last year.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, there are heaps of other events getting underway this month that aren't scheduled to see a winner until later in the year and here's a brief re-cap/pre-cap on what's been/will be going down:<br />
<br />
<b>2012 Gdynia Open</b><br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Tour_2012/2013_%E2%80%93_Event_2" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Click here to view the draw</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;">)</span></a><br />
<br />
The second European Tour event gets started before the first one does with all rounds leading up to the Last 32 taking place at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield while those left make the trip to Poland in early October. Those lucky candidates have now been decided and Stephen Maguire hasn't lost a frame yet, while Andy Hicks made it through by the slimmest of margins notching 4-3 victories in his two matches. Maguire will meet Michael Wasley in Poland while Hicks faces Liang Wenbo.<br />
<br />
Other notables include Jimmy White who was fortunate enough to receive a walkover in his opening match and came through a 4-3 winner of Andrew Norman to set up a Last 32 tie with Dave Harold, the winner of which will face Hicks or Wenbo. Neil Robertson and Jamie Jones will also meet for what I think is the first time and I expect it to be a good match over the short seven-frame format. Andrew Higginson and Stephen Lee also square off in their first meeting since Higginson upset Lee at the Crucible a few months ago. The winner of that fixture will face the winner of a match that I have no interest in watching at all between Michael White and Michael Holt.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ga32BCsJfJCgXGDEQrdqjrPAj_BxFkd9-IcX6YihVPjx2tvFACKuPte9gSVP83QAdpyzLzx2HAmX43zUg4ngWPBFWKp2YP47n48QvQTVsYkjuV2JgLOuAX6D1hJ7Nk6xHMeVaNJQniM/s1600/andyhicks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ga32BCsJfJCgXGDEQrdqjrPAj_BxFkd9-IcX6YihVPjx2tvFACKuPte9gSVP83QAdpyzLzx2HAmX43zUg4ngWPBFWKp2YP47n48QvQTVsYkjuV2JgLOuAX6D1hJ7Nk6xHMeVaNJQniM/s320/andyhicks.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Andy Hicks:</b> Makes more centuries than you.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<i style="font-size: x-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</i>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Elsewhere, it's Ding Junhui and John Higgins in the Last 32, the highest-ranking players to meet at that stage of this competition--there will be no reprieve for the winner though, as they will face Mark Selby if he can overcome Fergal O'Brien in their match. Shaun Murphy fell at the first hurdle to Alfie Burden who then proceeded to lose 4-0 to Norway's Kurt Maflin who has made a good run of things in this event and has a chance to do at least one better against Kyren Wilson. Last, but never least, Graeme Dott overcame Jack Lisowski in the first round and Craid Steadman in the second to make it to Poland and be drawn against the large-chinned and hot-tempered Tom Ford. Ford smoked Graeme pretty good in the semi-final of last year's eleventh PTC event 4-0, and managed to knock Graeme out of the Welsh Open last year 4-2. Dott still has the better record and would be expected to win, but anytime I watch these two meet now, I feel nervous.<br />
<br />
<b>Haphazard Quarter-finalist Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"></span>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Stephen Maguire</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Liang Wenbo</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Tian Pengfei</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Neil Robertson</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Stephen Lee</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Ding Junhui</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Jamie Burnett</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Graeme Dott</i></li>
</span></ul>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>PREDICTED WINNER: </i>Neil Robertson</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>Lots of hope, sprinkled with a dash of reason. He can beat anyone left in the draw over seven frames.</span></div>
<b><br /></b>
<b>2012 International Championship - Qualifiers</b><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_International_Championship" target="_blank">(Click here to view the draw)</a></span><br />
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The biggest new tournament on the calendar has its televised stages get underway October 28th, but in the meantime, everyone outside of the top 16 is being put through the qualifying grind, some needing to win up to five best-of-11 frame matches just to get into the main draw.<br />
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As I type this, Jimmy White and Aditya Mehta are level at 3-3 and a great deal of the matches have already occurred as the first two rounds came to a close yesterday. Highlights include Pankaj Advani, a famed billiards player in India, having come through the winner in the first three of his four qualifying matches to set up one last clash with Michael Holt for a place at the venue--his 6-5 victory over Steve Davis will surely be a memorable one for him. If Aditya Mehta can get through Jimmy White, then there's a pretty good chance that India will be quite well-represented in this inaugural "major" ranking event.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRh_r1SC8pD0QYKfCkppa7qX9aUXTU_vc1OzljoUKFjTvjaUJzJD_3s_HqzOTQ5prFm2BlN3RK9gi6TEYAhWo5B1-WuZw9mdfuA0nxLf3eAeDAeI84-zbgOwTXTU3gPesJX7UjdExqPJI/s1600/xiaoguodong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRh_r1SC8pD0QYKfCkppa7qX9aUXTU_vc1OzljoUKFjTvjaUJzJD_3s_HqzOTQ5prFm2BlN3RK9gi6TEYAhWo5B1-WuZw9mdfuA0nxLf3eAeDAeI84-zbgOwTXTU3gPesJX7UjdExqPJI/s320/xiaoguodong.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Xiao Guodong: </b>Hoping for TV without the broad cast.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo by Monique Limbos</i></span></div>
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Luca Brecel is no doubt itching to find the televised stages more often, but he lost out yesterday to the ol' Sheriff of Pottingham, Anthony Hamilton who faces Ryan Day tomorrow for a place in the main draw. Sam Baird got his revenge over Australia's Ben Judge 6-1 after being upset by Judge in their last meeting and being placed on <a href="http://www.snookerbacker.com/2012/08/20/" target="_blank">snookerbacker</a>'s blacklist. However, David Gilbert was too much for him in the second round and having defeated Rory McLeod in the third, Gilbert will face Andrew Higginson to have another shot at a big run in a big ranking event. Kurt Maflin has continued a good start to the season and come through two eleventh-frame deciders against both Gareth Allen and the ever-banausic Rod Lawler. Elsewhere, Q School's Robbie Williams has had a good run to win his opening match and dispose of Andy Hicks but currently appears to be 4-1 down to Mark King.<br />
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Anyhow, before the results start rolling in, I'd better dish out the better-late-than-never predictions.<br />
<br />
<b>Haphazard Qualifier Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"></span>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Barry Hawkins</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Paul Davison</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Ken Doherty</b></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Anthony Hamilton</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">David Gilbert</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Michael Holt</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Marco Fu</b></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Mark Davis</b></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><i>Mark King</i></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><i><i><b>Aditya Mehta</b></i></i></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><i><i><i><b>Robert Milkins</b></i></i></i></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><i><i><i><i><b>Cao Yupeng</b></i></i></i></i></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><i><i><i><i><i>Marcus Campbell</i></i></i></i></i></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><i><i><i><i><i><i><b>Peter Ebdon</b></i></i></i></i></i></i></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><i><i><i><i><i><i><i>Xiao Guodong</i></i></i></i></i></i></i></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><i><i><i><i><i><i><i><i>Dave Harold</i></i></i></i></i></i></i></i></i></li>
</span></ul>
<i style="font-size: small;">PREDICTED WINNER: </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Marco Fu (sure, why not?)</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>Medium-to-high. Although not the biggest fan of international travel, he's won the China Open and his game can really come through sometimes on big occasions regardless of where he is in the world. Go Dott!</span></div>
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<b>2012 Paul Hunter Classic </b><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Tour_2012/2013_%E2%80%93_Event_1" target="_blank">Click here to view the draw</a>)</span><br />
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All rounds of the tournament held in Fürth, Germany to take the name of the late great Paul Hunter will, unlike the Gdynia Open, take place in the same country as the final rounds and it's the only one of these events where nothing has been decided as yet. It features more nations in the pre-qualifying round than any event I've watched before including Croatians, a handful from Bahrain, Icelandic snooker players, that guy from Turkey I saw Ronnie decimate once on YouTube, more than one Swiss player and a guy from Malta who isn't Tony Drago. And a special shout-out and wishes of good luck go out to Sweden's <a href="http://www.twitter.com/cuetracker_ron" target="_blank">Ron Florax</a>, proprietor of <a href="http://www.cuetracker.net/">www.cuetracker.net</a> and an exceedingly helpful fellow whose dedication to the game is unrivaled amongst Dutchmen living in Scandinavia.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjfjDVs1GonHHpue5nphvTe7PFsVSNCkxRXw4tQQ-27-HqIKCIq1pWeAflOa7TzrGCPm5rL5jaUViORGm4hpxINyoe9jjdT_J3GfHTzEpz0Vm9Ghi_IHK7Itqb8p-2A7-NZf5uvYtwhqo/s1600/jimmywhite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjfjDVs1GonHHpue5nphvTe7PFsVSNCkxRXw4tQQ-27-HqIKCIq1pWeAflOa7TzrGCPm5rL5jaUViORGm4hpxINyoe9jjdT_J3GfHTzEpz0Vm9Ghi_IHK7Itqb8p-2A7-NZf5uvYtwhqo/s320/jimmywhite.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Jimmy White</b>: Cursed to lose to biblethumpers.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></i></div>
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Last year's Paul Hunter Classic in Germany saw Mark Selby whitewash Mark Davis 4-0 in the final. If they are to meet again this year, it will be in the Last 32 round, and looking at the draw, there's no reason to expect that Selby won't make another run to the latter stages. In Section 6, Jimmy White has a relatively easy go of things until running into possibly Luca Brecel, or even Rory McLeod who recently laid a 4-0 hiding on Judd Trump in their most recent meeting. I like to hold out hope for Jimmy to make the quarters of <i>any</i> ranking event these days, but so much depends on what happens to Shaun Murphy in his section because I'm not confident Murphy will lose to White under any circumstance these days. He hasn't done so since 2004 to my knowledge.<br />
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After getting some ugly draws in the earlier events, Graeme Dott is offered something of a reprieve by facing a pre-qualifier in the opening round, only to end up against either Marco Fu or Stuart Bingham in the Last 64--the conspiracy to eliminate Dott from the top 16 grows. Nevertheless, if he can get through that round (and he most certainly can), I like his chances.<br />
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<b>Haphazard Quarter-finalist Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<ul><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"></span>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Ryan Day</b></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">John Higgins</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Stephen Lee</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Mark Selby</b></i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Ricky Walden</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Shaun Murphy</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Graeme Dott</i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Neil Robertson</i></li>
</span></ul>
<i style="font-size: small;">PREDICTED WINNER: </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">John Higgins</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>Reasonably high--I'd be disappointed if he lost to half the players I've backed to make the quarterfinals.</span></div>
Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-62712163241614067782012-07-23T10:47:00.001-07:002012-07-23T10:51:41.843-07:00Maguire wins PTC1 and I don't know JackWhen I look at the draw for any Players Tour Championship event, the odds of being able to successfully predict who will end up in the quarterfinals is stacked heavily against me. The nature of an upset victory is such that it's difficult to foresee, and when too many subject matter experts in the field are calling for an upset, it ceases to be one.<div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigFzxu2BUXA-SHvQdwZfYQDXiMDqIjR_RRytp9LZqfaajnTDeisMMhujLBpeKk8WGOvBCmZC92Te2tTLOdFYtz2ureRohjUty1-Od73b4UZYB1p77THKX-Ygrqr-DZA6Vyzwu3RJ9X0gU/s1600/428888_3884052294234_938808197_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigFzxu2BUXA-SHvQdwZfYQDXiMDqIjR_RRytp9LZqfaajnTDeisMMhujLBpeKk8WGOvBCmZC92Te2tTLOdFYtz2ureRohjUty1-Od73b4UZYB1p77THKX-Ygrqr-DZA6Vyzwu3RJ9X0gU/s320/428888_3884052294234_938808197_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Stephen Maguire & Jack Lisowski: </b>PTC1 Finalists</span><br />
<div style="font-size: 13px; text-align: right;">
<i style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by Monique Limbos</span></i></div>
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For instance, I picked Mark Selby to win this first PTC event in the UK this season and obviously there's a good case to back that up. What really throws the best players under the bus in these events is the short format, though. At this level of professional competition, almost any result is feasible over a best-of-7 frames. So, while Selby had no trouble whitewashing Lucky Vatnani in the opening round and still managed to get through Rory McLeod 4-2, how could I have imagined that Dave Harold would be the hurdle Selby couldn't clear as he lost 4-2 in the last-32 round.<br />
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Dave Harold would then go on to lost 4-0 to Andrew Higginson, who always plays well in these events it seems, but again anything can happen. Many of my original picks for the quarterfinals progressed some distance through the tournament, but Xiao Guodong also fell to Thailand's Dechawat Poomjaeng in the last-32, as did Andy Hicks and Ryan Day.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCSVQKYdA40vf9JrtbsUXQh5EIfjjI4jxPR9fBKD4BOfudSAyWy_dVe1YjF859Amz46gJOndz9zPtFeYQL5PMX8FduS_35wnJbF4WWa_yIHu2RNL6ckoDxnLkAuO-Wg286X-lVEH-4A5Q/s1600/lucabrecel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCSVQKYdA40vf9JrtbsUXQh5EIfjjI4jxPR9fBKD4BOfudSAyWy_dVe1YjF859Amz46gJOndz9zPtFeYQL5PMX8FduS_35wnJbF4WWa_yIHu2RNL6ckoDxnLkAuO-Wg286X-lVEH-4A5Q/s320/lucabrecel.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Luca Brecel: </b>Flemishly disposing of the old guard.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo by Monique Limbos</i></span></div>
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As I feared, Graeme Dott dropped his opening round match to Luca Brecel 4-2 despite a pair of 90+ breaks, the likes of which often bring Graeme to the winning post. While I still don't think Luca can hang with the current top 16 over a longer format match, I do have to hand it to him for being able to string together wins against Dott, then Ken Doherty and Joe Perry in deciding seventh frames, only to lose 4-1 to Judd Trump in the last-16. That victory for Judd brought him to the quarterfinals and thus became the sole player that I accurately predicted would do so. Imagine that: one out of eight correctly guessed and the one I got right was Judd Trump--what genius!<br />
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Now, I have consistently failed to give Jack Lisowski a lot of credit and following his relatively poor run of results last season, thought of him as being little more than Judd's baby-faced flatmate. To see him get through to his second PTC final in two years reminded me that there was a first. It wasn't easy though as his quarterfinal against Judd ended up going 4-3 (as did the other quarters) and Jack would also face deciding frames in the semifinal against Mark Williams <i>and</i> the final with Stephen Maguire.<br />
<br />
Truly, he should've won that last decider as well--he was gifted a chance to clear up for victory after Maguire's slow-rolling straight black during a frame-winning chance didn't quite have the juice to drop into the pocket. Lisowski, having potted the last red and black, left himself a little long on the yellow and ended up rattling it in the jaws with all the colours on their spots. Maguire, needing all six, duly obliged to claim the title.<br />
<br />
Given Jacks' level of experience on the tour and the possibility of winning a first ranking title hanging over his head, the miss wasn't too surprising, but he's won me over as a player capable and deserving of making it to the televised stages of the bigger events. Particularly the win over Mark Williams, whom I never would've predicted to lose to Lisowski before this tournament--even over a shorter format.<br />
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That'll teach me for writing him off early when I clearly don't know Jack.</div>Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-50210097493901443752012-07-17T14:23:00.003-07:002012-08-15T06:42:47.220-07:002012 Shanghai Masters Qualifiers - A few paths and permutations<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>There's lots of places you can find the draw for the 2012 Shanghai Masters, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i>: <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Shanghai_Masters">2012 Shanghai Masters</a></b></span><br />
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Mark Selby hasn't won a ranking event since the Shanghai Masters at the beginning of last season and although I tipped him to win PTC1, I'm not sure he'll do as well when it comes to the knockout stages in China. I don't really know what to make of the fact that some players seem to play better than others overseas, but Selby seems to be able to win matches anywhere and it can't be seen as an excuse.<br />
<br />
Who he'll end up playing in the first round as defending champion remains to be seen<br />
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<i>Qualifying</i><br />
As much as I like to root for him, last year's IBSF world champion Hossein Vafaei from Iran will have to fight through IBSF under-21 world champion Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon, another Thai player in Dechawat Poomjaeng, plus Mike Dunn and Jamie Cope for a place in the knockout round. I expect the challenge will be too great at one stage or another.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPWfVsu4Bw33ViOcDup1KQLOWwvFLBfgtyfboc1BbZoG0t9X1P0M3Dhvn2DEFgkLQJkLf-vN0Py_zL99NxnJoxmvDKW4L0vXytH80vCETDa3efOVUxBs2bJJ8DAhnnC5efcKib10wRJ48/s1600/Pankaj-Advani_2_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPWfVsu4Bw33ViOcDup1KQLOWwvFLBfgtyfboc1BbZoG0t9X1P0M3Dhvn2DEFgkLQJkLf-vN0Py_zL99NxnJoxmvDKW4L0vXytH80vCETDa3efOVUxBs2bJJ8DAhnnC5efcKib10wRJ48/s320/Pankaj-Advani_2_0.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Pankaj Advani</b>: Not mentioned in this article.</td></tr>
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India's Aditya Mehta started playing really well towards the end of last season and the two-year tour card might begin to show its worth as he's adapted to competitive playing conditions over an extended term. He'll have to get through the James Wattana-Matt Selt-Mark King series of higher-ranked opposition to do so, but I don't discount the possibility.<br />
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Elsewhere of note, Canada's Floyd Ziegler is drawn to play Robbie Williams (who I think was a Q School qualifier?) and hopefully he will have made his way to England by then to enter this event after having withdrawn from PTC1. Not knowing a great deal about Robbie Williams and knowing that Floyd is a two-time Canadian champion, I have to think that he's at least got a chance. He would have to defeat the likes of David Gilbert, Gerard Greene and Mark Davis after the fact to book a ticket to China, of course.<br />
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Another good draw for Kurt Maflin as he is in line to face Marco Fu if he can win three qualifying matches. Good to see Daniel Wells in the draw again as well with the likes of Ken Doherty and Marcus Campbell standing in his way of qualifying for a venue.<br />
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<b>Haphazard Qualifier Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;"><b>Jamie Cope</b></span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;"><b>Tom Ford</b></span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;"><b>Mark King</b></span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Andy Hicks</i></span></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Jimmy White</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;"><b>Ryan Day</b></span></i></li>
<li><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Robert Milkins</b></i></span></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;"><b>Peter Ebdon</b></span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;"><b>Mark Davis</b></span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Sam Baird</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Ben Woolaston</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Liang Wenbo</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Ken Doherty</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Anthony Hamilton</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;"><b>Marco Fu</b></span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="background-color: #f9cb9c; font-size: x-small;">Cao Yupeng</span></i></li>
</ul>
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<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-80803085557309226692012-07-17T13:56:00.004-07:002012-07-26T07:54:05.780-07:00PTC1 - Bet your house on these malformed insights!<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>There's lots of places you can find the draw for the first Players Tour Championship event of the 2012/2013 season, but this isn't one of them. To make sense of what I'm yammering about in this article, please consult Wikipedia here</i>: <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Players_Tour_Championship_2012/2013_%E2%80%93_Event_1">Players Tour Championship 2012/2013 - Event 1</a></b></span><br />
<br />
I'm looking forward to the PTCs this year and I expect that m'boy Graeme Dott should be able to do well in them again, which may be the key to his holding a Top-16 spot going into the next couple of revisions after a few rough results at the end of last season.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Kacper Filipiak</b>: Won a frame against John Higgins. Once.
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Photo by Monique Limbos</i></span></div>
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Running through the preliminary round draws, it looks like Reanne Evans is back in the mix but she didn't do too well in these events last season, but you gotta wish her well. It couldn't hurt to get a woman in the game who could compete with some of these dudes.<br />
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Poland's wonderkid Kacper Filipak shows up in Round 2 against Joe Swail hoping to get into the main rounds and win at least a match this time--I'm fairly sure Kacper was shut out of wins last season and didn't exactly snatch many frames against top players either (if you don't count the 70-0 frame over John Higgins in the World Cup that one time). The preliminary rounds are, as always, full of a few names you recognize and a few that you've never heard of. Arbitrarily, amongst these lot, I'm going to root for Scotland's Marc Davis to push all the way through to hopefully face Mark Davis in the final. I like to see the referees put in unusual situations ("<i>Foul, Marc Davis, ninety-seven; Mark Davis, six and the frame, Marc Davis.</i>")<br />
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Section 1 of the draw has a pretty good crop of players waiting to play the survivors of the preliminary round and I'd expect pretty much all of them to win their first matches--though Andrew Higginson sometimes looks like one of those players who can lose to anybody, despite slaying giants quite a bit more often than his own conquerors. Kurt Maflin still seems to be the only guy regularly carrying all of the hopes and dreams of Scandinavian snooker fans and he was playing well towards the end of last season, making it all the way to the last-16 in PTC12 where, in fact, Andrew Higginson ended up finishing him off. All in all, it should be Mark Selby's quarter if he can kick this season's current habit of <i>not </i>being constantly in the semis or better all the time.<br />
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In Section 2, I'm counting on Michael White to lose to Alan McManus, who will go on to lose to Dominic Dale, who will meet Xiao Guodong in the last-16, possibly losing. You can bet your house on that (don't). Section 3 has a potential last-64 match between the two recent ranking event winners Barry Hawkins and Ricky Walden. Andy Hicks is in this section of the draw as well and I keep hoping to see him back in the televised stages. But I'm sure the ever unpronounceable Thanawat Thiranpongpaiboon, who won the amateur under-21 world title held in my native Canada last year, will always pose a threat in these events.<br />
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Speaking of better your house on stuff, how about 4-0 Robert Milkins over Ben Judge in Section 4. Take my advice (don't [no, really, that's a good bet]).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.snookerline.com/Can/07/floyd3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://www.snookerline.com/Can/07/floyd3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Floyd Ziegler</b>: On the pro tour for Canada! Soon. I think.</td></tr>
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As a Canadian, I was going to be vociferously rooting for Floyd Ziegler who was drawn a tough challenge in Fergal O'Brien in his first pro tour match. Floyd was given the Americas nomination and is the first Canadian flag on the tour for quite some time, but he appears to have withdrawn from this first event. Maybe next time! Also in this section, Peter Ebdon and Rod Lawler have drawn one another in the first round, which should be the longest snooker match of all time, despite the short format.<br />
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Steve Davis faces Zhang Anda, most famous for pushing Stephen Hendry to a deciding frame in Round 1 of the 2010 Worlds, in Section 6 while Jimmy White and Tony Drago are schedule for a first-round shootout in Section 7.<br />
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Last, but of course not least, the Graeme Dott quarter--while I root for Dott over any other player, he'll have to meet and defeat Belgium's Luca Brecel right off the bat. Luca is fresh off a good World Championship campaign in which he had to win four Best-of-19 qualifying matches for the right to play at the Crucible for the first time. Whereas Graeme's Crucible campaign was considerably less momentous, putting in one of his worst career performances losing 10-1 to a sub-par Joe Perry.<br />
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As luck would have it, should Dott extinguish the fire of Luca Brecel, he will also have to survive a potential clash with the always-tough Ken Doherty, followed by a potential meeting with Joe Perry again! Or worse, the sneering Tom Ford who has inexplicably, and to my gross disappointment, defeated Graeme in their last two ranking event meetings. To top it all off, Graeme Dott's reward for meeting these challenges (which of course, he is totally capable) is probably a last-16 run-in with Judd Trump!<br />
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True, it's only a PTC and losing out even in the first round wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but Graeme is slipping down those rankings a little when you see what's happening at <a href="http://prosnookerblog.com/rankings/latest-projected-seedings/">Matt's Fantastic Latest Projected Seedings at Pro Snooker Blog</a>, and this is also the sort of series of victories that would help re-establish his confidence as being among the best (which of course, he is).<br />
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<b>Haphazard Quarter-finalist Predictions:</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)</span></i><br />
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<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Mark Selby </i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Xiao Guodong </i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Shaun Murphy </i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Robert Milkins </i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Stephen Lee </i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Ryan Day </i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;">Jimmy White </i></li>
<li><i style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b>Judd Trump</b></i></li>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>PREDICTED WINNER: </i>Mark Selby</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: </i>Not very much, even for a PTC. =(</span></div>
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<br />Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301026313368384127.post-85698217486842341692012-07-17T12:37:00.000-07:002012-07-18T07:33:27.001-07:00Quest to re-capture magic moments from the past...Videos are a fantastic thing, see.<br />
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For those with access to this special technology as it was introduced, recorded accounts of life in motion gave creative minds a nigh infinite range of possibilities and created enough work to fill jobs by the thousands. It has only grown since. Indeed, nearly every passion and pursuit in humanity's catalogue of activity demands some sort of video coverage in the present day (such as <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ3QOYurjLA">cow fighting</a> and a surprisingly large collection of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tennis+with+a+frying+pan&oq=tennis+with&gs_l=youtube.1.9.0l10.53657.55113.0.61227.11.9.0.1.1.0.156.980.5j4.9.0...0.0...1ac.aN2lc74AJKU">frying pan tennis videos</a>).<br />
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During the original snooker boom kick-started by <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_Black">Pot Black</a></i> in the early seventies, video cameras were hardly pervasive as today's pea-sized handheld camcorders are, and those that did exist were almost solely in the possession of television networks. There weren't ten thousand channels and even colour television itself was a novel, state-of-the-art concept at the time so the popularity of snooker back then doesn't particularly surprise me.<br />
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There is an argument that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_checkers">Chinese checkers</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crokinole">crokinole</a> may have enjoyed similar levels of public rapport if they had been selected as pilot programs for the first colour broadcasts from the BBC--but I doubt very much that the staying power of snooker and the very human moments it has gone on to create throughout its history could be trumped by such abstract tabletop games where the table itself can be stowed away in a closet rather than permanently consuming the majority of the space in any homeowner's rumpus room.<br />
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But here in the 21st century, we are now victims of information overload and video is no exception. Folks aged 1 to 100 are recording videos and you can hardly buy a dog collar without a built-in camera these days. I seem to remember some sort of article about certain players wearing a goofy 'cueists-eye-view' headband-cam at last year's World Championship but thankfully someone pulled the plug on that before the cameras started rolling (presumably Crucible staff filed complaints at the sight of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek)">Borg</a> entering the theatre as assimilated top-16 players).<br />
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Surely, there are pros and cons to this overwhelming tidal wave of technology, but a standout positive side effect is that tenderfoot newcomers to snooker fandom have the facility to take in the greatest moments in snooker history thanks to the preservation of film.<br />
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I was born just a couple of months after Jimmy White reached his first World Championship final in '84, so it goes without saying that I've missed a great deal of snooker's greatest moments. Without the aid of the internet and the preserved film in question, I would never have had any shred of what it must've been like to experience this:<br />
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However, as a present-day snooker fan who watches the current events unfold live, as they happen, it would be an outright lie to suggest that merely watching these old videos is equal to experiencing the moment. After all, Dennis Taylor's win over Steve Davis on the final black was long the stuff of legend well before I saw the video and although knowing the result doesn't necessarily spoil the sight of this iconic moment, it also doesn't capture the entire story. It doesn't bring the viewer back to what they must've been feeling early on in the match when Taylor trailed Davis 8-0 after the first session. It doesn't remind the viewer what it must've been like for him to fight back and finally draw level at 15-15, only to fall behind again 17-15 needing to win all three remaining frames. If you don't see the entire match, the attempted double on the final black from Dennis Taylor that miraculously runs safe after somehow pulling it back to 17-all doesn't carry as much meaning. </div>
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Although the entire 35-frame final may be available for viewing somewhere on the internet, my point is that watching a full match from the past is as close as you can get, but there's still nothing quite like watching it happen when it's really happening. </div>
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Snooker is not exactly a fast-paced viewing experience and it can be quite difficult for many to commit to watching every frame of some of the lengthier-format live matches, never mind those that are several decades old where you already know the winner and the final score before you even start the video. Nevertheless, it can be a worthwhile experience to see the whole story unfold and you end up with a more intimate knowledge of the history of a tournament or the game as a whole. A true purist might argue that you haven't really seen the whole story of the 1985 final if you hadn't also been present to witness the matches that each of the finalists had won to get there and I would tend to agree. Often the road to the final is a more dramatic journey than the final itself, but alas, there are only so many hours in a day and as the snooker season's calendar grows ever-more bloated with events all over the world, it becomes more and more difficult to find time for matches from years gone by, especially going in with the predisposition that it could never be as rewarding a viewing experience as seeing something happen live.</div>
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Not to downplay the experience too much though, there are definitely a number of full and complete matches that I would be remiss not to have seen as a snooker fan. If you love the game and haven't seen them already, you owe it to yourself to watch the complete, or nearly complete video of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as2VCBa15KA">1997 Liverpool Victoria Charity Challenge Trophy final</a>, and the complete <a href="http://youtu.be/ehBH67BoBWU">2004 Masters final </a>with Paul Hunter and Ronnie O'Sullivan to name a couple of the best contests that can be found in their entirety. </div>
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Seeing great matches from the past does give me some sense of going back in time, putting myself in the frame of mind of the commentators who are there reliably calling the game just as though it truly was happening live. The downside is that it leaves me wanting to see other matches that I've only ever heard about in clipshows and highlight reels, only to discover that such videos aren't available. </div>
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Would love to have seen the full match where Cliff Thorburn made the first 147 at the Crucible but alas, nowhere to be found! Nor will my desire to see 1980's semi-final between Alex Higgins and Kirk Stevens be sated by this so-called powerful video technology! </div>
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Nay as well to the full and complete 2006 final, in which Graeme Dott, my own personal hero in snooker, achieved the dream. Oh to have seen the turgid drama unfold! To witness the build-up! Alas, I am relegated to clips and highlights, offering glimpses of a player's heart that has worn the task of surviving this long with the finish line just ahead...</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/hJwgB351Br4?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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I take solace in the knowledge that as I am now a dedicated follower of the game, these rare moments from the past are ones I will bear witness to when they happen, as they happen in the future. </div>
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As the tour plunges into the 2012/2013 season and as more and more camcorders are installed into cell phones, pocket watches and dog collars, more and more videos of these great moments in sport will be captured forever for future generations who inherit the patience that a sound appreciation of the game calls for. </div>Randall Morrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04869964530386851542noreply@blogger.com0