Welsh Open Feb 16-22, 2015

[robertmac]

He is not playing well at all. He needs to play
or go home for sure.
Walden's win is a surprise to me.

[jrc750]

Just stupid that ehh, could of maybe got a good cue ball clipping off those reds

[Boycie]

And now he is thinking LOL

[PatBlock]

Ah I see, Robbo's playing for a re-wrack now.

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[cyberheater]

Well done Gary.

One of the strangest snooker tournaments I've seen in a long long while. All of the big guns gone.

[PatBlock]

Well done Gary.

One of the strangest snooker tournaments I've seen in a long long while. All of the big guns gone.

Have to agree, it's been a weird one, good fun though.

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[P.Smith]

So who is the highest ranked player left?

[gettingbetter]

Good to see a nice array of flags for the quarter finals.

Definitely an interesting quarter final line up and it would be hard to pick who is a favourite - I would naturally lean towards Walden as he had probably had the better season so far. Nice to see Brecel make it deep in the tournament and probably secure his place in the rankings. I think being the first snooker Youtube sensation has put a bit of pressure on him, but the young man is only 19 and has many productive years ahead of him - very few have achieved any level of success at that age.

Would be good to see a Fu v Brecel final personally.

[OmaMiesta]

As mentioned previously in this thread, it's ridiculous that a full ranking event has best of 7 matches.

Can someone explain why they do that. Why not start an hour earlier and have a best of 9? The larger the sample size the greater the chance that the better player will win. Don't the tournament organizers want to give the top players the best possible opportunity to win?

It's OK in the PTC events, but it should be a minimum of best of 9 in ranking events.

I agree completely....these short races is any mans game.... Part of the reason Ronnie was knocked out so early. Longer races and the better player usually comes out in the end.

[OmaMiesta]

When will sports commentators stop talking about "momentum"? It's mostly a myth.

I challenge anybody to look at all matches where a player was three behind with four to go and won three frames to go to a decider. You'll find that who wins the decider is a 50/50 proposition or slightly favours the better player regardless of who supposedly had the "momentum"

I think the whole momentum thing is psychological. When a player is playing well and then he suddenly misses an easy shot and lets the opponent in, the momentum switches in favor of the opponent because he has an easy in and a great chance to clinch the frame and do some psychological damage.

[Odrl]

Another enjoyable night of snooker. :smile:

Well done to Wilson... when he missed that black off the spot in the 5th frame I thought he wouldn't have the nerve to win, but he hardly made a mistake after that.

Robertson fails to make the final weekend of this event for the sixth year in a row then, he clearly doesn't like the shorter matches. :smile:

[Odrl]

I won't have any time tomorrow morning, so just a few words about the quarter-finals...

First of all, best-of-9s return tomorrow, so we have finally arrived to the proper part of the tournament. :smile: The line-up is a little weird, but still pretty interesting. There are three players who have never won a major event, and have in fact never been to any major semi-final, so it's a big day for them. And there are also a couple of players who have not won anything recently, so this is a great chance for one of them to end their drought. :smile:

Higgins v. Maguire will be the opening match, a repeat of the final here in 2011, which Higgins won 9-6. Maguire has been a bit of a bogey player for Higgins since then though, so I would make him the favourite here. He has been quite reliable recently, this is a chance for him to reach his third ranking semi-final in a row, but unfortunately we have seen very few of his matches in all of that time. He has been quite lucky with some of his draws, landing in Hawkins' quarter twice for example, but this time he has a tough job, while some other parts of the draw have opened up a little. Higgins is appearing in his first major quarter-final of the season, thus prolonging his run of reaching at least one in every season of his career so far. We haven't seen him this week either, but he seems to be playing quite well at the moment, so it should be a good match. It wouldn't surprise me if the winner of the tournament came from this pairing. Maguire to win 5-3. :smile:

Fu v. Williams to follow, another fairly evenly matched pairing. Fu had a couple of poor frames today, but at times he looked very strong, winning a couple of frames in a single visit. Last year he lost 5-0 in the quarter-finals, played poorly without any warning really, and that's something that has always been a problem with him. If he plays well I think he is a stronger player at the moment, certainly the more reliable scorer, but I would give Williams every chance as well. Trump didn't really put him under any pressure today, but it was still refreshing to see Williams winning without much struggle. He has frames where he plays like he used to, knocks a few tough pots in and wins it in one or two visits, but then he has a period where he misses a few easy ones, and that's definitely something he should cut out at this stage of the tournament. No scoreline would surprise me here, from 5-0 either way to anything in between. Fu has won the last couple of times they met, but this time I will go for Williams, 5-4. :smile:

And in the evening we have Walden v. Brecel, quite an intriguing prospect. Brecel actually beat Walden on the way to his only previous major quarter-final, in the 2012 UK Championship, and it's nice to see him finally playing that well again. He impressed by holding his nerve against Selby, and he was getting in with some good long pots, kind of like Trump when he plays well. We haven't seen Walden, so it's tough to say how well he is playing, but he is the only player left in the tournament who has won something major recently, so one could easily make him the tournament favourite at this point. He is kind of like Fu though, he can suddenly lose a match 5-1 or something like that for no particular reason, so Brecel has every chance here. I'll go for Walden though, 5-3. :smile:

And finally there is Woollaston v. Wilson, the most surprising pairing here. Wilson played really well against Robertson, taking a few of his chances at the right time, and it doesn't seem like he is nervous in the least. Woollaston lost the 1st frame against Carter on the black, but then came back with two centuries to take control of the match, so that suggests he is quite confident at the moment as well, but obviously we have not actually seen him play. The problem is, neither player has the luxury of really being the underdog here. They would both have expected to play a top player in their first big quarter-final, but now they will both be thinking what a great chance this is, and quite often that leads to a nervy and scrappy match. I would be surprised if it wasn't close, but I will go for Woollaston to prevail, 5-4. :smile:

Should be a decent day of snooker. :smile:

[victorl]

Very nice writeup Odrl!
I agree with your picks, except I think Fu is playing well enough to prevail over Williams (could be a very close match, though).

[motorhead]

I agree completely....these short races is any mans game.... Part of the reason Ronnie was knocked out so early. Longer races and the better player usually comes out in the end.

uhm, Ronnie had like 1 million chances to get back in the final frame, I doubt the format was his problem in that match.

[motorhead]

Just to be correct though, Selby played on for 21 penalty points, which I'm sure he knew he would not get from six single snookers. He was probably thinking of getting a free ball on the last red, which meant he could have theoretically won with only two snookers. :wink:

Wouldn't a free ball on the last red had just given him 12 pts (fault+free ball+ black) at best? I didn't watch the match so I don't know what was the table like.

Nice write-up!