Trump's Tumultuous Title Defence in York

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: 2012 UK Championship

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.

Judd Trump: Bulgarian punani aficionado.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.

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?

Top Half

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.

Steve Davis: Old.

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.

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.

Dott: Armed with the will to win and a case of Irn-Bru.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

Luca Brecel has also qualified for York by way of winning four 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.

Bottom Half

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.

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.

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.

Liang Wenbo: Obviously drinks espresso between sessions.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.

Conclusion

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.

Behold! The 32-thread spool of sporting drama begins to unravel this weekend!

P.S. I'm still pissed about these best-of-11 frame sprints for a title of such prestige...


Haphazard Quarterfinalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Judd Trump
• Stuart Bingham
• Ricky Walden
• Shaun Murphy
• John Higgins
• Matthew Stevens
• Barry Hawkins
• Mark Selby

PREDICTED WINNER: Mark Selby

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: Moderately low. Meeting Trump in the semis makes it improbable.

*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... 

International Championship - Opening Rounds

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: 2012 International Championship

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.

Dott: The draw's really opening up for--oh, wait...

Photo by Monique Limbos

Turning to the matter of O'Sullivan, I understand that he's pulled out of this event for health reasons 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.

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.

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.

Stephen Maguire: Might be due for a win.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.

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.

Now then, let's revise these predictions:


Haphazard Semifinalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Neil Robertson
• Marco Fu
• Mark Allen
• Stephen Maguire

PREDICTED WINNER: Stephen Maguire

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: Kill me.

The Other Other Big One - To Chengdu!

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: 2012 International Championship

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.

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.

Barry Hearn: Time is money, friend.

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.

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*

The Draw
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!

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...

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.

Marco Fu: Reppin' for Deroo Cues in Chengdu.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.

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.

Stuart Bingham: India's worst nightmare.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.


Haphazard Quarterfinalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Ronnie O'Sullivan
• Neil Robertson
• Shaun Murphy
• Marco Fu
• Stuart Bingham
• John Higgins
• Stephen Maguire
• Mark Selby 

PREDICTED WINNER: Ronnie O'Sullivan

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: An unfortunately small amount. If he can somehow make the semi-finals, then maybe I'll start getting excited.

John Higgins - Like a BOSS

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: 2012 Shanghai Masters

John Higgins: The CEO of bottle.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.

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.

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.

Judd Trump sweating bullets and missing table time.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

2012 Shanghai Master Champion

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.

Watch this lengthy sequence of safety shots 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.

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. 

Last 16 in Shanghai - From deciding frames to decisive victories

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: 2012 Shanghai Masters

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.

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.

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.

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?

Ali Carter: Regularly underestimated.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.

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.

This weekend, the 2012 Alberta Snooker Championship, 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.

Unless Graeme wins it of course, in which case I'll likely mention it a couple of times throughout the season.

Defeat - A meal fit for a Ding

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: 2012 Shanghai Masters

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.

Ding Junhui: What the f----

Photo by Monique Limbos

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.

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.

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.

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.


Haphazard Semi-finalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Stuart Bingham
• Stephen Maguire
• Mark Williams 
• Graeme Dott

PREDICTED WINNER: Mark Williams

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: It's really all contingent on Mark Allen beating Judd Trump.

PTC3 - Gloucester's second-to-last hurrah

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: Players Tour Championships - Event 3

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.

Yu Delu: Not Ronnie O'Sullivan.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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, these kinds of stories 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.

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.

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 and Xiao Guodong--phew!

Graeme Dott: Will win 2 or 3 matches this time, goddammit.

Photo by Monique Limbos

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 nearly beating Mark Selby 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.

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 Snookerbacker Classic 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.

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.


Haphazard Quarterfinalist Predictions:
(NOTE: Predicted results are made with my head, not with my heart--but generally speaking, it doesn't make them any more accurate)

• Mark Williams
• Graeme Dott
• Barry Hawkins
• Judd Trump
• Stephen Lee
• Ronnie O'Sullivan
• Michael Holt
• Mark Selby 

PREDICTED WINNER: Mark Selby

HOPE LEFT THAT GRAEME DOTT WILL WIN THIS EVENT: Trace amounts of hope--tough quarterfinals if it all goes the way I see it.