The German Masters Feb 4 - 8, 2015

[robertmac]

I am looking forward to February as it has
plenty of tournaments starting with this one
which is usually well attended by players and
fans alike. Robertson vs O'Brien and Trump vs
Holt along with Higgins, Maguire and Selby
matches on day one.

[DeanH]

yep definitely looking forward to this event, always a good feel around it

sessions listing:
http://livescores.worldsnookerdata.c...urnament/13789

[sammyts]

Will be there and looking forward to sampling one of the best atmospheres in snooker !

[cyberheater]

Thanks robertmac.

Looks like Eurosport UK are supporting this day one. Great.

[Erwan_BZH]

Anyone know which match will be televised this afternoon? Higgo vs Ebdo or McGill vs Selby?

[DeanH]

it starts on Wednesday not today and no I don't see any indicators as to which matches will be on TV across the tournament

[Erwan_BZH]

Jeeez I wanted it to start a tad bit too early! :P

[DeanH]

don't we all

are you close enough to go to the arena, have you ever been to any?

[Erwan_BZH]

No unfortunately even though I'm just a few kilometers away from the German border, Berlin is very far away, more than 7 hours drive. Never been to any venue yet but dying to go once. Was close to go to the Masters in January but was in London for a business trip the week before the even....just a couple of days short so! :/

[DeanH]

should make the effort, totally different from watching on TV
again I am off to the Welsh in a few weeks - for the WHOLE week, cant wait
only 2hrs and a bit down the M4

[Erwan_BZH]

Oh it is certainly worth it. Only time and quids were lacking in this story but for sure I'll go very soon. Maybe Sheffield if possible

[Odrl]

I am looking forward to this event as well, although I have to say this isn't really my favourite part of the season. There is lots of snooker in February and March, but unfortunately it's mostly best-of-7 stuff, and I would much rather have another couple of events with the traditional format. The German Masters is best-of-9, but it's only five days of snooker, so not really a proper snooker week.

There is usually a good feeling about this tournament, particularly because of how well supported it is by fans, but for someone watching on TV it's not really ideal. The main table is the furthest away from all the spectators, so I always get the feeling no one is watching it, and the atmosphere is a little underwhelming as a result. On top of that, this tournament has the worst TV coverage of any major event. They insist on only televising one table, and they absolutely refuse to move the cameras to another table if the main match finishes early, even though it would be quite easy to do in that setup. That means we get to see very little snooker over the five days, probably the equivalent of three days in other similar events.

Having said that, we have seen some good snooker here over the last four years, and hopefully this year won't be any different. The field has already been reduced to 32 in the qualifying back in the UK, and there have been some notable casualties. The biggest names missing are Marco Fu, Ricky Walden, Ali Carter, Graeme Dott, Robert Milkins and Matthew Stevens.

Let's see who we have left at this stage...

Quarter 1:

Ding Junhui v. Ryan Day
Alfie Burden v. Michael Georgiou
Liang Wenbo v. Li Hang
Stuart Bingham v. Matthew Selt

The first quarter had most of the qualifying casualties, namely Walden, Carter and Dott, along with Alan McManus, which makes it the weakest at first glance. That said, Ryan Day is a pretty harsh 1st round draw for the defending champion in any event, even if the 1st round is actually the last32 stage in this case. Day had a little revival last season, when he reached the business end of a couple of ranking events, but this season he is still waiting for a good run. Over the years he has had a lot of success outside of the UK, in places like China, Malta and Germany, so he is always a danger on these travels. His match against Ding Junhui will be a repeat of the semi-final here last year, a match Ding won 6-5 after both players had their chances in the decider. Day has also caused problems for Ding in the past, beating him in the 1st round of both the World and the UK Championship in 2012. He is the kind of player who can hold his own against anyone in an open attacking game, so Ding will need some form to win this. He hasn't shown much form lately though. He has only played at two venues all season in the major ranking events. He started with a pretty solid run to the semi-finals in Shanghai, but since then he has done nothing of note, and the Masters last month was no exception. There was a PTC held in China two weeks ago, in Xuzhou, but Ding decided to skip it, presumably concentrating on the two upcoming ranking events in Europe. He still holds three ranking titles at the moment, which is more than any other player, but that will no longer be the case if he fails to defend this one. We are entering the final three months of the season now, and Ding is under pressure a little to get a good result, especially as he has won some sort of major title every season since 2009/2010. He doesn't always deal with pressure too well though, so I am a little worried for him here. Having said that, if he does get past Day, the draw then opens up a little. Alfie Burden against Michael Georgiou is the only 1st round pair with two real outsiders, and it would be a big surprise if either of them managed to reach the quarter-finals, especially as they have both done very little so far this season. Burden did play in that PTC in Xuzhou though, and managed to reach the quarter-finals there, so he is clearly in decent form at the moment.

Stuart Bingham has also managed to avoid a couple of fellow top players, but the three players that remain near him in the draw are all very dangerous in their own right. Matthew Selt in particular has been in good form recently, reaching the final of the Lisbon Open just before the new year, and he also got to the last16 of the UK Championship, where he lost to O'Sullivan. His recent trip to China was less successful, a defeat in his opening match, but he will be looking for better here, making his debut at the venue stage of this tournament. He already has a major win over Bingham, in the 2012 Australian Open, when Bingham was defending champion. The Chinese battle between Liang Wenbo and Li Hang could also be quite interesting. Their seasons so far have been quite similar, but I suspect Liang had bigger expectations, especially after the solid season he had in 13/14. The highlight for him has been reaching the last16 in Wuxi, beating Selby on his way, and he will be favourite to reach that stage here as well, as he did a year ago. Li's best this season is also a last16 appearance, in the International Championship, where he had a very convincing victory over Higgins and eventually lost to a pretty strong O'Sullivan, so he will probably see this as a good chance to do something himself. Like Selt though, Li too lost his opening match in Xuzhou. Can either of the Chinese players get past Bingham? Well, they don't have much history, but Bingham has beaten both of them in a PTC final in China, Liang last season and Li the season before. He also beat Li in Shanghai this season, in a very high-quality match. Of course he went on to win the title that week, his second major ranking win. It's interesting, he has won major titles in China and Australia, and he is the king of Asian PTCs with four wins, but he has never had much success when travelling to Germany. Could this be his week? He has been pretty reliable all season, with solid performances in the International and the UK Championship to follow his Shanghai win, so he is surely the man to beat here.

Quarter 2:

Mark Allen v. Mark Williams
Shaun Murphy v. Michael Wasley
Joe Perry v. Jimmy Robertson
Ronnie O'Sullivan v. Mark Davis

By contrast the second quarter is probably the strongest part of the draw. Shaun Murphy is the in-form player at this point in time, assuming his form from the Masters is still around. His performance to win that title was one of the best all season, and certainly Murphy's best in a long time in the major events. Unfortunately it contributed nothing towards his ranking though, and he now finds himself down in 10th place, after a couple of mediocre seasons. If I'm not mistaken Murphy is a big supporter of the flat system in ranking events, but ironically his results have probably suffered more than any other player's since it was introduced. In the last two seasons he has only reached three major quarter-finals in 15 events, winning one of them. But looking at the two seasons prior to that, Murphy reached 13 quarter-finals in 18 events, with quite a few semi-finals as well, which is quite a dramatic difference. He is due a good run in a ranking event, and it could be this week. He has already won a title in Germany this season, the Ruhr Open in November. Michael Wasley is not exactly the most dangerous opponent at this point in time, after failing to qualify for any major venue prior to this week, except of course the UK Championship which had no qualifying stage, and even then he went out in the 1st round. The mention of his win over Ding at the Crucible is inevitable though, and Murphy can't afford to be complacent. The next round should be much trickier for Murphy, against either Mark Allen or Mark Williams, who meet in possibly the best prospect of the 1st round. Allen has to be the favourite though, looking at this season's form and their previous meetings. They have played quite a few times recently, and Allen won all three of their major matches in 2014, all in China, the highlight being his 9-8 win in that excellent semi-final in the International Championship. He already has two major finals this season, along with good performances in the PTCs, and he seems to have found a bit of consistency now. The Masters saw him produce some excellent and some not so great snooker, but his performance was good enough to get him to the semi-finals, where Murphy played superbly to take him out. Allen has already won a couple of PTCs in Germany, including one this season, but the German Masters itself has not been a successful event for him so far. Williams on the other hand is a former champion of this event, when it was first held in 2011. He hasn't won a major title since, but travels outside of the UK seem to suit him. Only one of his last six major ranking finals was in the UK, the others in places such as China, Australia and Germany. This season his best result came in Chengdu, but it wasn't quite enough to earn him a place in the Champion of Champions and the Masters, so we haven't seen as much of him as we have the other top players. He is trying his best to improve that ranking though, so he took part in the PTC in Xuzhou and reached the semi-finals, where he lost to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. He plays Murphy quite often in the shorter matches, but their last match over anything longer than best-of-7 is quite old now, the semi-final of the 2010 UK Championship, which Williams won 9-8. As for Allen, he doesn't have a win like that over Murphy at all, Murphy winning all seven of their major matches in the past, including the already mentioned semi-final in the Masters recently. Allen is the kind of character who is not really intimidated by anyone, but that kind of record is still tough to ignore. :wink:

Ronnie O'Sullivan has been pretty reliable in getting through the early rounds of events over the last couple of seasons, but he has not been in great form recently. In the semi-finals of the Masters he played his worst match in a long time and lost comfortably. He also played poorly in the quarter-finals of the International Championship, and he could have left a similar impression in the UK Championship as well, had Bingham not collapsed against him from 4-1 up in the semi-finals. But in the end impression counts for nothing, and O'Sullivan won another major title, which just shows that he doesn't really need to be in form to be a danger. He won this tournament in 2012, in his only appearance at the venue, ending his three-year drought in ranking events and kind of turning his career around again. Since then all of his major success has come in the UK events, and most of his travels abroad have ended in early exits. He doesn't seem to have the same will to battle through bad form in these events, although maybe playing in front of a full house will inspire him here. Mark Davis is probably one of the toughest draws he could have got in the 1st round, a quarter-finalist in this event last year. It's interesting though, Davis has reached nine major ranking quarter-finals since his rise up the rankings fairly late in his career, but the one in Germany last year was his first one after the new year, the other eight were all before the new year, mostly in the summer months. It could just be a coincidence, but it's an interesting pattern in any case. It will be tough for him against O'Sullivan, but he did beat him in the Championship League just prior to this event, for whatever that's worth. Joe Perry also has a reasonable chance to reach the quarter-finals here. He was in great form at the start of the season, reaching the final of the Wuxi Classic, but his results in the following couple of months were unimpressive. He played a little better in the UK Championship, had a good win over Ding in the Masters, and did very well in the last two PTCs as well, a quarter-final in Lisbon and the title in Xuzhou, although he didn't really face any top players along the way. His immediate threat is Jimmy Robertson, who also played alright in Xuzhou, getting to the last16. He already has a major win over Perry, in the 2013 China Open. Perry also lost the most recent major match against Davis, 6-5 in the UK Championship this season, although he does have a strong record against him apart from that. He doesn't have a good record against O'Sullivan though. He lost 5-1 when they played in this tournament in 2012, and of course recently lost to him in the last16 of the World Championship, 13-11. He can draw some confidence form that match though, because he played really well for most of it, and while O'Sullivan did finish with two centuries, he was also very lucky to win the 22th frame and avoid going 12-10 down. I'm looking forward to seeing how this section plays out. :smile:

Quarter 3:

Neil Robertson v. Fergal O'Brien
Xiao Guodong v. Liam Highfield
Stephen Maguire v. David Gilbert
Barry Hawkins v. Mark King

The third quarter is possibly slightly weaker again, but it does have some interesting players. Neil Robertson is the big name, coming here after playing probably his worst-ever major final, so he will be looking to get back on track. He played very well for most of the Masters, but he peaked in the middle of the tournament rather than at the end, and he was nowhere near strong enough to match Murphy in the final. That was his second defeat in major finals this season, after the one in Australia, but he did win the Wuxi Classic right at the start of the season. If you offered players one major title this season, I think most would accept, but I don't think Robertson is one of them. At this stage of his career he is probably looking for a little more, so I'm sure he will be determined to get something out of the remainder of the season. Last year he played poorly here and lost early, 5-1 to Tian Pengfei, and he came close to having to play him again, but Fergal O'Brien beat Tian in the final qualifying round. I think it's fair to say that O'Brien is not among the more dangerous qualifiers at this point in time, but it's worth mentioning that he's already reached a ranking quarter-final this season in Shanghai, his first in seven years. He was Robertson's first opponent in the 2010 World Championship, when Robertson went on to win the title, and he's played him in another couple of ranking matches, but lost those as well. Marco Fu would have been the other big name in this section, but he lost his final qualifying match to Liam Highfield. That leaves Xiao Guodong as Robertson's main danger, already a ranking semi-finalist this season, in the Australian Open. He of course reached the final of the Shanghai Masters last season, and played well in this tournament as well, losing to Day in the quarter-finals. He made a trip to China to play in the recent PTC, but he lost his second match against Barry Pinches. He has never played Robertson in any match of decent length, so this pairing might be interesting to see. He has played Highfield though, twice this season, and beat him in the qualifiers for the Wuxi Classic and at the venue in the Australian Open.

Stephen Maguire seems like the best bet to join Robertson in the quarter-finals in this part of the draw. It's now almost two years since his last major title, the 2013 Welsh Open, but recently he has been playing quite well and finally looks like winning something again. He got to the semi-finals of the UK Championship without playing his very best, which must a pretty good sign for him, and he followed it up by winning the Lisbon Open. To be honest, he played quite well in the Masters as well, but came up against an even better Murphy. He is the kind of character who can lose heart a bit if he is not winning, especially if he feels like he is playing well enough that he should win, so I hope he remains patient and continues to give it his all, and a big title is surely bound to come his way. He was a finalist in this event in 2012, after beating a string of top players with superb performances, but he just came up a couple of frames short against O'Sullivan in the final, and it's hard to think of a match where he played as well as that and still failed to win. The following two years saw him go out early in this tournament, so I'm sure he will be looking to put things right this year. His 1st round opponent is David Gilbert, a player we don't see much on TV these days, but very capable of beating anyone, especially in open attacking games. Maguire was the winner the last time they played though, 5-3 in the Wuxi Classic this season. Barry Hawkins is the highest-ranked player here, but for the first time in a while I think most people would consider him second favourite in his section of the draw. He started the season quite well, with a semi-final appearance in the Wuxi Classic, but since then he has failed to reach the business end of any major tournament. I expect him to have another form peak before the season is over, but there is little indication that it could happen this week. We know Mark King is a very dangerous opponent for anyone in these tournaments, something of a specialist for taking out the top players in fact, but he too has struggled this season. He still hasn't won a match at the venue stage of events, not that he has reached many in the first place, which makes it probably his worst season since I've been following snooker. In Xuzhou he lost to Jimmy Robertson in the last32, but it's hard to say whether that's a good or a bad result. He has beaten Maguire before, 5-0 in this tournament two years ago in fact, but he hasn't played Hawkins in a main event for eight years. As for Hawkins and Maguire, their record is surprisingly one-sided, Maguire winning all six of their best-of-9 meetings in ranking events, five of them in China, although to be fair, quite a few of those were before Hawkins' fairly recent rise up the rankings. Hawkins did win the one time they met in a two-session match though, 10-9 in the 1st round of the 2011 World Championship. :wink:

Quarter 4:

Judd Trump v. Michael Holt
Martin Gould v. Ashley Carty
John Higgins v. Peter Ebdon
Mark Selby v. Anthony McGill

The last quarter is another fairly strong one. Judd Trump has been one of the best players so far this season, certainly in a different situation to last year, when he came to this event on the back of some mediocre results. He has already played in three major finals this season, winning one of them, and he perhaps should have done even better. This event turned his season around last year, he played superbly all week, winning 26 frames and only losing 4 ahead of the final, but Ding proved too strong at the final hurdle. Michael Holt is the opposite case, he had a really good last season, but this time he is still waiting for a notable result. He played his best snooker in June, when he reached a PTC final and the last16 of the Wuxi Classic, but since then we haven't seen much of him on TV. He reached the quarter-finals of this tournament in 2013 and 2014, so I'm sure he is happy to be back in Germany. Last year it was Trump who ended his run with a 5-0 whitewash, but Holt did beat him 5-1 in the Shanghai Masters earlier that season, on the way to his best-ever result in a major event. Martin Gould perhaps has a slightly better chance to go through. He reached the semi-finals of a standard ranking event for the first time in his career in Wuxi this season, then won exactly one match at every venue prior to this week, and he is favourite to do so again. He should beat Ashley Carty, but of course he can't afford any complacency, as Carty has already beaten Milkins in the qualifiers for this event. Gould doesn't have much history in the German Masters, so it will be interesting to see whether he can put that right here. He is bound to get an open game against Trump, the kind he usually likes, but of course one must remember their match in the 2011 World Championship, when Trump played ridiculously well and won 13-6. They haven't met in a major match since. Gould and Holt have played a couple of times though, Holt won 5-4 in Shanghai last season, and Gould returned the favour with a 5-3 win in Australia earlier this season.

And we conclude with one of the most interesting sections of the draw. Mark Selby might still be the man to beat, but he is certainly very vulnerable at the moment. The Masters ended very quickly for him with a 1st round exit, although in hindsight that result doesn't seem too bad now. It was the first time he ever lost a decider in the Masters, which was bound to happen eventually, but it was unusual to see him waste a scoring chance at such a crucial point. His season has been similar to Ding's, a semi-final appearance in Shanghai and a PTC title, but not much else apart from that. He has even missed out on a couple of venues. The German Masters has mostly been a successful tournament for him, even though he has never won it, and only came close in 2011 when he lost that classic final against Williams. Last year he lost to Kurt Maflin in the 2nd round, one of only two major tournaments where he failed to reach at least the quarter-finals all season, of the ones with proper matches anyway. He has never met Anthony McGill in a major match before, so it will be interesting to see how it goes. McGill already has a major scalp to his name in this event, after he beat Allen here in the 1st round last year. He also reached his first proper ranking quarter-final this season, in the UK Championship, where he beat John Higgins along the way, and had a decent chance of beating O'Sullivan as well, but didn't take it. Speaking of Higgins, he is one of the more unpredictable players here, showing some good form in patches recently, but also throwing away a couple of matches he could and should have won. He is still waiting for a ranking quarter-final this season, and needless to say that if he doesn't reach one, it will be the first time in his entire career. He has never got to the business end of this particular tournament yet, although in 2011 he would have had a decent chance, but withdrew after his father passed away. I just get the feeling that a good tournament is coming for him, but it's hard to predict exactly when. Peter Ebdon is a tough 1st round opponent obviously, especially for Higgins, whom he has an excellent record against. He won the last three times they met in major tournaments, 5-4 in the 2012 China Open, 10-8 in the final of the same tournament three years prior, and 9-7 in the semi-finals of the 2006 UK Championship. I know we are going back a bit here, but it's interesting that Ebdon has won the last three major events he beat Higgins in, which are also the three most recent events he has won. He has never done too well in Germany though, and for some reason seems to play most of his best snooker in China these days. I think it would be a great match if either of these two met Selby in the 2nd round, and they would have a decent chance of beating him as well. Ebdon and Selby played two cracking matches a few years back, Ebdon won 9-6 in the 2006 UK Championship and made four centuries along the way, although if I remember right the match wasn't televised, and Selby of course won 13-7 in the World Championship that same season, making five centuries himself and going on to reach the World final. Since then they have only met in short matches. As for Selby and Higgins, it would be pointless to list all the great matches they've played over the years, so maybe just a mention of the last one, in the Masters last season, when Selby came from 5-3 down to win 6-5, enjoying a bit of luck along the way. I'm sure Higgins will be eager to get some revenge if they do meet here. :wink:

Possible QF line-up:

Ding Junhui v. Stuart Bingham
Shaun Murphy v. Ronnie O'Sullivan
Neil Robertson v. Stephen Maguire
Judd Trump v. Mark Selby


The previous editions of this tournament suggest that it won't be quite as predictable as that, so I'm looking forward to seeing where the surprises come from. :wink:

[robertmac]

Excellent analyis as usual so thanks Odrl.

Your picks look good as I would select the
same players however surprises in snooker
tournaments are so common. I too hope for
some great matches and cant wait.

I also agree that one TV table is a shame.

[sammyts]

Spoke to Ryan on plane on way over today, loves the venue and confident of a good showing again in a repeat of last years semi against an out of form ding, cud be worth a punt at a decent price for the match !

[daffie]

Great write-up per usual Odrl...thanks!

I'm also really looking forward to the German Open. It always has a good feel to it and provides some good (although far too short imo 9-frame) matches. Not my very favorite of tournaments because of the many-table setting, but still enjoyable. Bit of a time-filler untill the Welsh Open and finally the World Championship. Still it's snooker, so count me in :snooker: