Australian Open 2015 June 29 - July 5

[robertmac]

The first tournament of the new season and it looks
like some very interesting possible matchups.

Group 1 has Trump, Guodong, Maguire and Walden as
the key players.
Group 2 has Fu, Holt, Allen and Robertson.
Group 3 has Selby, Davis, White and Murphy.
Group 4 has Perry, Milkins, Higgins and Bingham.

Group 1 and 2 winners will meet as well as Groups 3 and 4.

Trump and Robertson would be a great matchup as
would Murphy and Bingham.

[Burnpark]

Neil Robertson looks the one to beat. Twice a losing finalist and desperate to win in his native homeland, played well in the World Cup. Trump doesn't appear to be back in the zone yet and may not be fired up. Maguire, Allen and Higgins could be ones to watch out for.

[Odrl]

So, the tournament starts in a few hours, perhaps a little too early for me, because I am too busy at the moment to do a proper preview.

At first glance it looks like the best field we have ever had in Australia, the only top players missing are Ding, O'Sullivan, Hawkins and Williams. This will be the first event of the season for most players, so it's very tough to predict how well they might be playing. The four quarters look nicely balanced here, helped perhaps by the fact this tournament is still held under the old (and in a lot of ways superior) tiered system.

Here is what we have...

Quarter 1:

Judd Trump v. Jack Lisowski
Xiao Guodong v. Ian Burns
Stephen Maguire v. Joel Walker
Ricky Walden v. Andrew Higginson

Judd Trump is the top seed as defending champion, looking for the kind of start he had last season. My feeling is that he is probably not as well prepared as he was last year, mainly because he doesn't really have a point to prove this time. He gave it his all in the World Championship and came close to reaching the final, but he just came up against a very strong Bingham, so he probably won't dwell on it too much. I'm not sure whether he has been practising hard over the last month or so, particularly with not being involved in the World Cup, but I wouldn't be surprised if he needed a bit of time to return to form. He has a tricky opening match against Jack Lisowski, normally not among the real dangermen, but Lisowski knows Trump very well and is not scared of playing him. He won the last three matches between them, most recently in the 2013 China Open, which was a real classic, but unfortunately he has struggled for most of the last two seasons, dropping down to 44th in the rankings now. Last year he was whitewashed by Murphy in the 1st round here, so he will be looking for a better showing this time. Also here is Xiao Guodong, a semi-finalist in this event last year, where he lost to Trump in a good match. He looked like he was on the verge of establishing himself as a possible top16 player, but then went the rest of the season without reaching the business end of any other major event. The final part of the season in particular was a big struggle, when he couldn't even get through qualifiers. The recent World Cup could have gone better for Ding and him as well, so I am not expecting any fireworks from Xiao this week.

A more realistic challenger for Trump here could be Stephen Maguire. It's quite a few years now since he was the world number 2, but for some reason he still plays world-class stuff whenever he meets Trump. He has never done anything notable in Australia, he was whitewashed by Jamie Jones in the 1st round last year for example, so I don't consider him one of the favourites this week, but you never know with him. His World Cup performance had some good and some bad moments, but it's always difficult to judge players in that particular format. He too could have a tricky opening match against Joel Walker, the player who beat him a little more than a year ago in the last16 of the Welsh Open. Unfortunately Walker's progress has stalled a little since then, but he is still younger than a few other players who have had a breakthrough recently. This will be Walker's first appearance in Australia, after losing in the qualifiers the previous years. Ricky Walden could be strong this week as well. Last season was perhaps his best ever, mainly for his triumph in the fairly prestigious International Championship, but like with Maguire, his season ended with a disappointing early exit at the Crucible. He generally plays his best snooker outside of the UK though, and he came closer than anyone to beating Trump here last year, so he will fancy his chances. As for the potential 2nd round match with Maguire, they don't meet very often on the big stage, but it's Maguire who has the better record.

Quarter 2:

Marco Fu v. Martin Gould
Michael Holt v. Gerard Greene
Mark Allen v. Mark Joyce
Neil Robertson v. Matthew Selt/Ben Judge

Marco Fu has had an interesting career full of inconsistency and occasional brilliance, but lately it's his consistency that's been his strong point. Last season he reached the quarter-finals of six major events (if we are generous about which events we class as majors), but he never went beyond that stage, so it kind of felt like a mediocre season for him. He played very well in both of his previous appearances in Australia, winning the title in 2013, which for some reason he decided not to defend the following year. His 1st round match against Martin Gould is probably among the two or three best prospects of the round, but I'm sure Fu would have preferred an easier opponent. They have met three times at the Crucible and Gould has won two of those meetings, although Fu did win the last one in 2014. Gould played superbly in the opening event of last season, in Wuxi, where he reached his only major ranking semi-final to date, so he will be looking for something similar here. Unfortunately he is another player who struggled in the second part of the season, but I suppose players go into the new season with a fresh mindset, even though there isn't much of a break after the World Championship these days. Michael Holt just squeezed in as a seeded player here, but I'm not sure he is a player who enjoys the favourite status much. He has never won a match in Australia, but he is generally a good traveller, while Gerard Greene doesn't really have any notable results outside of the UK.

Neil Robertson will be looking to join Fu in the quarter-finals here, in a repeat of the 2013 final, but neither of them will have it easy. Robertson clearly enjoys playing snooker in the summer, in the last two years he won the Wuxi Classic twice and followed it up with a final in the Australian Open, and he is the one player whose motivation is never in doubt here. On the contrary, this is the one event he still hasn't won, and it could put him under pressure. Matthew Selt still needs to come through the wildcard round, but realistically that shouldn't be much of a problem for him, so he should be Robertson's 1st round opponent here. It's a tough draw for both players. Selt missed out on the venue stage of this event in the last two years, but his previous two appearances saw him reach the quarter-finals, both times beating the top seed in the opening round, so he clearly likes playing in Australia. On top of that he is a much improved player these days and a danger to anyone. Robertson did beat him 6-3 in the International Championship last season though. What about Mark Allen? He is another player who looked to have found some consistency last season, with runs to the final of the Shanghai Masters and the International Championship, but the rest of his season was fairly poor. He blamed it on not being able to work with Terry Griffiths, so it will be interesting to see whether he can find some sort of form again now. He has never done anything notable in Australia though, and Robertson is a bit of a nightmare opponent for him, beating him for a number of years in a row in the Masters, as well as in the World Championship in 2014. They were set to meet at the Crucible this year as well, but in the end Barry Hawkins knocked them both out...

Quarter 3:

Mark Selby v. Mark King
Mark Davis v. Jamie Jones
Michael White v. Hossein Vafaei Ayouri
Shaun Murphy v. Allister Carter

Mark Selby had a pretty good year as World champion, winning two major ranking events, so he handled the added pressure quite well. There isn't as much attention on him this season, which can only be a bonus. He returns to Australia after skipping last year's event, and of course he was involved in the World Cup as well, which ended in disappointment for Bingham and him. The route to the quarter-finals doesn't seem too difficult, but there are still a couple of tricky opponents he has to beat. Mark King first of all, the player who has caused him some problems in the past, knocking him out of the World Championship and the Masters when Selby was one of the big favourites. To be fair though, their head-to-head record as a whole is very much in Selby's favour, with King only winning 1 frame out of 12 in their last two major matches. This is also King's first appearance at the venue in Australia, and he hasn't exactly been the most dangerous qualifier in recent times. On the other hand, Mark Davis could be a real danger for Selby. He is one of the best "summer" players around, a semi-finalist in this event last year, and quite a common presence in quarter-finals last season, although quite a few of them were in best-of-7 events. He too has a very poor record against Selby though, a record that includes two previous defeats in the Australian Open. Jamie Jones shouldn't be underestimated either. He still hasn't followed up his run the quarter-finals of the World Championship with any other notable result, but last season saw him play a little better, and as I said earlier, he whitewashed Maguire here last year, before coming up against a very solid Robertson in the following round. Jones and Davis have never met in any match of decent length, so it will be interesting to see how this one goes.

Shaun Murphy was among the best performers last season as well, playing in three major finals and winning one of them. His last two matches against Selby were superb, so I would quite like to see them meet in the quarter-finals here, but Murphy will need a good performance to get there, and he is traditionally not a good season starter. His opening match against Ali Carter is the best prospect of the 1st round for me, and it's probably the worst draw Murphy could have got, because Carter is not ranked that low because of poor form, but rather his off-table problems. At his best Carter is quite capable of beating anyone, and he has had a couple of really one-sided wins against Murphy in the past, although the match that could give Murphy the psychological edge here was their semi-final in the UK Championship in 2012, when Murphy came back from 8-4 down to win 9-8. Carter missed a large part of last season, and even when he did play, he always seemed to meet an inspired Robertson early on and never really had a chance. He has also never won a match in Australia, so I would consider him an underdog in this quarter. I think Michael White will be Murphy's biggest obstacle. He lost 5-1 when they met in this tournament two years ago, but he is a much improved player now. Last season saw him reach two major quarter-finals early on, both in China, and he later added the Indian Open title, so he is clearly a player who doesn't struggle away from home. The season ended on a downer for him, with an early exit in the World Championship qualifiers, and he seemed to struggle at times with his form in the recent World Cup, so I am not sure he is playing well enough to beat Murphy. Hossein Vafaei deserves a mention as well, having made it to the venue all the way from the 1st qualifying round, but it would obviously be a surprise if he made it through here.

Quarter 4:

Joe Perry v. Jamie Burnett
Robert Milkins v. Ben Woollaston/Adrien Ridley
John Higgins v. Michael Georgiou
Stuart Bingham v. Fergal O'Brien

Joe Perry is seeded to reach the quarter-finals in this fourth quarter, thanks mostly to the big top prize he got for winning the PTC Finals last season. I am not very impressed by players' performances in the best-of-7 events, so for me, the highlight of his season was reaching the final of the Wuxi Classic, where he came within a frame of winning the title. He then went to Australia probably a little disappointed, so he lost in the 1st round, but this time he is a bigger danger. He generally has a good record over Jamie Burnett, so he should beat him, but Burnett shouldn't be underestimated, particularly when he is in the kind of form that saw him reach the quarter-finals of the International Championship last season, beating Trump on his way. I wouldn't be surprised if Robert Milkins had a run here. Like Mark Davis, Milkins seems to play his best snooker in the summer months, having reached a semi-final and a quarter-final in his previous trips to Australia. Last season saw him compete at the business end of four major events (again being generous with the word "major") in three different countries, so I like his chances in events like this one. Ben Woollaston is the opposite case I suppose, he generally doesn't do well outside of the UK and he struggles with consistency at times. He was a finalist in the Welsh Open last season, a major breakthrough for him, but unfortunately he has played quite poorly since. Milkins beat Woollaston 5-3 when they met in the 1st round of this tournament two years ago, so I would make him favourite to reach the last16 here, but his record against Perry is dreadful, so he needs a good performance to go any further.

And we conclude with the World champion at the bottom of the draw, as in most events. Stuart Bingham was the best player in the world last season, winning the World Championship and the Shanghai Masters, but he never really lost his underdog status, which is a luxury in a way. Well, I think that status is finally gone now and there will be a lot more hype surrounding him. He is the kind of player who could deal with that quite well, but then again he might not, so we will just have to wait and see. He is one of the best travellers in the game, and he seems to do well in all kinds of different formats and environments, so I expected Selby and him to do much better in the World Cup, but they never really got going. I have no clue how Bingham spent the last month and a half after his big triumph, but it would be perfectly understandable if he took his foot off the gas a little, so he might need a couple of events to find his form again. Australia was the place that saw him reach top of the game for the first time though, when he won this event in 2011, so that may give him some inspiration. Fergal O'Brien is not the toughest opponent Bingham could have drawn, but he is very experienced and not really fazed by reputations. He reached the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters last season after a drought of seven years, so he is still capable of playing well on his day. John Higgins has a decent chance of going through as well. A year ago he was not really a contender for major titles, but it looks like some of his confidence has returned after he won the Welsh Open last season. He had some good moments in the recent World Cup, although he did drop some points he perhaps shouldn't have, and that decision to have Maguire play the decider against India was a little weird. I would like to think it was Maguire who asked to play, rather than Higgins running away from a pressure situation. He beat Michael Georgiou on his way to that Welsh Open title, 4-2 in the last16, ending Georgiou's best-ever run, and I suspect he will be too strong for him again. As for beating Bingham, well, Higgins actually has a surprisingly good recent record over Bingham, considering he has struggled quite badly at times, while Bingham has played the best snooker of his career in recent years, so I am tempted to go for Higgins in this section.

Possible QF line-up:

Judd Trump v. Ricky Walden
Marco Fu v. Neil Robertson
Mark Selby v. Shaun Murphy
Joe Perry v. John Higgins


So there we are, it should be a fun tournament. It is a little inconvenient to watch for me, because of the time difference, so I hope Eurosport show as much as possible in the mornings. I can't imagine staying up all night to watch matches live, but I've been known to do it in the past, so you never know. :wink:

[mikeyd100]

Damn dude...excellent review, you should be like a reporter, writer or something like that

[robertmac]

Thanks for the great review Odrl. Yes it starts in a few hours
and the time difference (Bendigo is 14 hours ahead of me) will
make watching some matches a challenge for me.
It is always so difficult to predict who will win or lose and who
will exit early and who will surprise everyone.
It would be nice to see Robertson finally win his home tournament
however there are lots of great opponents to beat first. Trump is
the defending champion and not to be counted out.
Hopefully lots of great snooker to start the new season.

[sharkster63]

Fergal Obrien was playing well, I think he might surprise some....

[Ramon]

So, the tournament starts in a few hours, perhaps a little too early for me, because I am too busy at the moment to do a proper preview.

At first glance it looks like the best field we have ever had in Australia, the only top players missing are Ding, O'Sullivan, Hawkins and Williams. This will be the first event of the season for most players, so it's very tough to predict how well they might be playing. The four quarters look nicely balanced here, helped perhaps by the fact this tournament is still held under the old (and in a lot of ways superior) tiered system.

Here is what we have...

Quarter 1:

Judd Trump v. Jack Lisowski
Xiao Guodong v. Ian Burns
Stephen Maguire v. Joel Walker
Ricky Walden v. Andrew Higginson

Judd Trump is the top seed as defending champion, looking for the kind of start he had last season. My feeling is that he is probably not as well prepared as he was last year, mainly because he doesn't really have a point to prove this time. He gave it his all in the World Championship and came close to reaching the final, but he just came up against a very strong Bingham, so he probably won't dwell on it too much. I'm not sure whether he has been practising hard over the last month or so, particularly with not being involved in the World Cup, but I wouldn't be surprised if he needed a bit of time to return to form. He has a tricky opening match against Jack Lisowski, normally not among the real dangermen, but Lisowski knows Trump very well and is not scared of playing him. He won the last three matches between them, most recently in the 2013 China Open, which was a real classic, but unfortunately he has struggled for most of the last two seasons, dropping down to 44th in the rankings now. Last year he was whitewashed by Murphy in the 1st round here, so he will be looking for a better showing this time. Also here is Xiao Guodong, a semi-finalist in this event last year, where he lost to Trump in a good match. He looked like he was on the verge of establishing himself as a possible top16 player, but then went the rest of the season without reaching the business end of any other major event. The final part of the season in particular was a big struggle, when he couldn't even get through qualifiers. The recent World Cup could have gone better for Ding and him as well, so I am not expecting any fireworks from Xiao this week.

A more realistic challenger for Trump here could be Stephen Maguire. It's quite a few years now since he was the world number 2, but for some reason he still plays world-class stuff whenever he meets Trump. He has never done anything notable in Australia, he was whitewashed by Jamie Jones in the 1st round last year for example, so I don't consider him one of the favourites this week, but you never know with him. His World Cup performance had some good and some bad moments, but it's always difficult to judge players in that particular format. He too could have a tricky opening match against Joel Walker, the player who beat him a little more than a year ago in the last16 of the Welsh Open. Unfortunately Walker's progress has stalled a little since then, but he is still younger than a few other players who have had a breakthrough recently. This will be Walker's first appearance in Australia, after losing in the qualifiers the previous years. Ricky Walden could be strong this week as well. Last season was perhaps his best ever, mainly for his triumph in the fairly prestigious International Championship, but like with Maguire, his season ended with a disappointing early exit at the Crucible. He generally plays his best snooker outside of the UK though, and he came closer than anyone to beating Trump here last year, so he will fancy his chances. As for the potential 2nd round match with Maguire, they don't meet very often on the big stage, but it's Maguire who has the better record.

Quarter 2:

Marco Fu v. Martin Gould
Michael Holt v. Gerard Greene
Mark Allen v. Mark Joyce
Neil Robertson v. Matthew Selt/Ben Judge

Marco Fu has had an interesting career full of inconsistency and occasional brilliance, but lately it's his consistency that's been his strong point. Last season he reached the quarter-finals of six major events (if we are generous about which events we class as majors), but he never went beyond that stage, so it kind of felt like a mediocre season for him. He played very well in both of his previous appearances in Australia, winning the title in 2013, which for some reason he decided not to defend the following year. His 1st round match against Martin Gould is probably among the two or three best prospects of the round, but I'm sure Fu would have preferred an easier opponent. They have met three times at the Crucible and Gould has won two of those meetings, although Fu did win the last one in 2014. Gould played superbly in the opening event of last season, in Wuxi, where he reached his only major ranking semi-final to date, so he will be looking for something similar here. Unfortunately he is another player who struggled in the second part of the season, but I suppose players go into the new season with a fresh mindset, even though there isn't much of a break after the World Championship these days. Michael Holt just squeezed in as a seeded player here, but I'm not sure he is a player who enjoys the favourite status much. He has never won a match in Australia, but he is generally a good traveller, while Gerard Greene doesn't really have any notable results outside of the UK.

Neil Robertson will be looking to join Fu in the quarter-finals here, in a repeat of the 2013 final, but neither of them will have it easy. Robertson clearly enjoys playing snooker in the summer, in the last two years he won the Wuxi Classic twice and followed it up with a final in the Australian Open, and he is the one player whose motivation is never in doubt here. On the contrary, this is the one event he still hasn't won, and it could put him under pressure. Matthew Selt still needs to come through the wildcard round, but realistically that shouldn't be much of a problem for him, so he should be Robertson's 1st round opponent here. It's a tough draw for both players. Selt missed out on the venue stage of this event in the last two years, but his previous two appearances saw him reach the quarter-finals, both times beating the top seed in the opening round, so he clearly likes playing in Australia. On top of that he is a much improved player these days and a danger to anyone. Robertson did beat him 6-3 in the International Championship last season though. What about Mark Allen? He is another player who looked to have found some consistency last season, with runs to the final of the Shanghai Masters and the International Championship, but the rest of his season was fairly poor. He blamed it on not being able to work with Terry Griffiths, so it will be interesting to see whether he can find some sort of form again now. He has never done anything notable in Australia though, and Robertson is a bit of a nightmare opponent for him, beating him for a number of years in a row in the Masters, as well as in the World Championship in 2014. They were set to meet at the Crucible this year as well, but in the end Barry Hawkins knocked them both out...

Quarter 3:

Mark Selby v. Mark King
Mark Davis v. Jamie Jones
Michael White v. Hossein Vafaei Ayouri
Shaun Murphy v. Allister Carter

Mark Selby had a pretty good year as World champion, winning two major ranking events, so he handled the added pressure quite well. There isn't as much attention on him this season, which can only be a bonus. He returns to Australia after skipping last year's event, and of course he was involved in the World Cup as well, which ended in disappointment for Bingham and him. The route to the quarter-finals doesn't seem too difficult, but there are still a couple of tricky opponents he has to beat. Mark King first of all, the player who has caused him some problems in the past, knocking him out of the World Championship and the Masters when Selby was one of the big favourites. To be fair though, their head-to-head record as a whole is very much in Selby's favour, with King only winning 1 frame out of 12 in their last two major matches. This is also King's first appearance at the venue in Australia, and he hasn't exactly been the most dangerous qualifier in recent times. On the other hand, Mark Davis could be a real danger for Selby. He is one of the best "summer" players around, a semi-finalist in this event last year, and quite a common presence in quarter-finals last season, although quite a few of them were in best-of-7 events. He too has a very poor record against Selby though, a record that includes two previous defeats in the Australian Open. Jamie Jones shouldn't be underestimated either. He still hasn't followed up his run the quarter-finals of the World Championship with any other notable result, but last season saw him play a little better, and as I said earlier, he whitewashed Maguire here last year, before coming up against a very solid Robertson in the following round. Jones and Davis have never met in any match of decent length, so it will be interesting to see how this one goes.

Shaun Murphy was among the best performers last season as well, playing in three major finals and winning one of them. His last two matches against Selby were superb, so I would quite like to see them meet in the quarter-finals here, but Murphy will need a good performance to get there, and he is traditionally not a good season starter. His opening match against Ali Carter is the best prospect of the 1st round for me, and it's probably the worst draw Murphy could have got, because Carter is not ranked that low because of poor form, but rather his off-table problems. At his best Carter is quite capable of beating anyone, and he has had a couple of really one-sided wins against Murphy in the past, although the match that could give Murphy the psychological edge here was their semi-final in the UK Championship in 2012, when Murphy came back from 8-4 down to win 9-8. Carter missed a large part of last season, and even when he did play, he always seemed to meet an inspired Robertson early on and never really had a chance. He has also never won a match in Australia, so I would consider him an underdog in this quarter. I think Michael White will be Murphy's biggest obstacle. He lost 5-1 when they met in this tournament two years ago, but he is a much improved player now. Last season saw him reach two major quarter-finals early on, both in China, and he later added the Indian Open title, so he is clearly a player who doesn't struggle away from home. The season ended on a downer for him, with an early exit in the World Championship qualifiers, and he seemed to struggle at times with his form in the recent World Cup, so I am not sure he is playing well enough to beat Murphy. Hossein Vafaei deserves a mention as well, having made it to the venue all the way from the 1st qualifying round, but it would obviously be a surprise if he made it through here.

Quarter 4:

Joe Perry v. Jamie Burnett
Robert Milkins v. Ben Woollaston/Adrien Ridley
John Higgins v. Michael Georgiou
Stuart Bingham v. Fergal O'Brien

Joe Perry is seeded to reach the quarter-finals in this fourth quarter, thanks mostly to the big top prize he got for winning the PTC Finals last season. I am not very impressed by players' performances in the best-of-7 events, so for me, the highlight of his season was reaching the final of the Wuxi Classic, where he came within a frame of winning the title. He then went to Australia probably a little disappointed, so he lost in the 1st round, but this time he is a bigger danger. He generally has a good record over Jamie Burnett, so he should beat him, but Burnett shouldn't be underestimated, particularly when he is in the kind of form that saw him reach the quarter-finals of the International Championship last season, beating Trump on his way. I wouldn't be surprised if Robert Milkins had a run here. Like Mark Davis, Milkins seems to play his best snooker in the summer months, having reached a semi-final and a quarter-final in his previous trips to Australia. Last season saw him compete at the business end of four major events (again being generous with the word "major") in three different countries, so I like his chances in events like this one. Ben Woollaston is the opposite case I suppose, he generally doesn't do well outside of the UK and he struggles with consistency at times. He was a finalist in the Welsh Open last season, a major breakthrough for him, but unfortunately he has played quite poorly since. Milkins beat Woollaston 5-3 when they met in the 1st round of this tournament two years ago, so I would make him favourite to reach the last16 here, but his record against Perry is dreadful, so he needs a good performance to go any further.

And we conclude with the World champion at the bottom of the draw, as in most events. Stuart Bingham was the best player in the world last season, winning the World Championship and the Shanghai Masters, but he never really lost his underdog status, which is a luxury in a way. Well, I think that status is finally gone now and there will be a lot more hype surrounding him. He is the kind of player who could deal with that quite well, but then again he might not, so we will just have to wait and see. He is one of the best travellers in the game, and he seems to do well in all kinds of different formats and environments, so I expected Selby and him to do much better in the World Cup, but they never really got going. I have no clue how Bingham spent the last month and a half after his big triumph, but it would be perfectly understandable if he took his foot off the gas a little, so he might need a couple of events to find his form again. Australia was the place that saw him reach top of the game for the first time though, when he won this event in 2011, so that may give him some inspiration. Fergal O'Brien is not the toughest opponent Bingham could have drawn, but he is very experienced and not really fazed by reputations. He reached the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters last season after a drought of seven years, so he is still capable of playing well on his day. John Higgins has a decent chance of going through as well. A year ago he was not really a contender for major titles, but it looks like some of his confidence has returned after he won the Welsh Open last season. He had some good moments in the recent World Cup, although he did drop some points he perhaps shouldn't have, and that decision to have Maguire play the decider against India was a little weird. I would like to think it was Maguire who asked to play, rather than Higgins running away from a pressure situation. He beat Michael Georgiou on his way to that Welsh Open title, 4-2 in the last16, ending Georgiou's best-ever run, and I suspect he will be too strong for him again. As for beating Bingham, well, Higgins actually has a surprisingly good recent record over Bingham, considering he has struggled quite badly at times, while Bingham has played the best snooker of his career in recent years, so I am tempted to go for Higgins in this section.

Possible QF line-up:

Judd Trump v. Ricky Walden
Marco Fu v. Neil Robertson
Mark Selby v. Shaun Murphy
Joe Perry v. John Higgins


So there we are, it should be a fun tournament. It is a little inconvenient to watch for me, because of the time difference, so I hope Eurosport show as much as possible in the mornings. I can't imagine staying up all night to watch matches live, but I've been known to do it in the past, so you never know. :wink:

This is just brilliant!! What should this forum do without you ?? just see noway out!!
is not only about how you write but also your intelligence!! which is i think is very high prepared!! is not about how you write this kind of things but the capacity of your text!! SO insideful !!!
If I want to be completely honest with you, I must admit that you are a born intelligent man !!
because with some people is the matter of learning. but in ur case : it's innate!!
continue to enlighten us with this kind of info,, please !!
I do'nt know about other members ,, but Personally i'm greatful !!
looking forwaard to see ur next report !!

[GeordieDS]

Is it on Eurosport?

[Odrl]

Thanks for the kind words Ramon, I am a little embarrassed now. :smile:

Is it on Eurosport?

Not at the moment, no, they have snooker scheduled in the morning, which will presumably be the evening session live, and possibly highlights of the afternoon session which is played in the middle of the night in Europe. You can usually watch it live on the Eurosport Player at night, but they don't have it on at the moment. It's the two wildcard matches, so perhaps the host broadcaster isn't showing them, but that's just guesswork. :smile:

[GeordieDS]

Thanks for the kind words Ramon, I am a little embarrassed now. :smile:



Not at the moment, no, they have snooker scheduled in the morning, which will presumably be the evening session live, and possibly highlights of the afternoon session which is played in the middle of the night in Europe. You can usually watch it live on the Eurosport Player at night, but they don't have it on at the moment. It's the two wildcard matches, so perhaps the host broadcaster isn't showing them, but that's just guesswork. :smile:

Middle of the night is perfect for me mate so i can look forward to it

[robertmac]

The first surprise early exit is Bingham who is defeated
by O'Brien 5-4. Bingham looked out of sorts as he missed
several relatively easy pots and O'Brien came back to win.
Woollaston was also defeated but that wasnt a surprise to
me. Trump plays next as well as Guodong.

[mikeyd100]

Fergal Obrien was playing well, I think he might surprise some....

I searched the thread to say to you "good call"
Never thought Fergal would trouble Bingham really but he's done the business.
( When I read your post first I was going to say "no chance" lol )

[mikeyd100]

Judd has just "Trumped" Jack 5-0.

Pity so one sided really, ...well done Judd though.

[JIMO96]

Fantastic preview from Odrl, as we've come to expect. One question for you Odrl: can you list some of the 'lot of ways' that you think the old tiered qualifying system is the 'superior' one? I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts, preferably in as much detail as you put into your excellent previews

[Odrl]

Some unexpected results on the first day then. I was surprised to see Bingham collapse in the second part of his match, especially as he looked to be in control and O'Brien was missing all kinds of easy balls. Nice finish from O'Brien though, won the last three frames with big breaks.

I bought Lisowski and Walker in my fantasy team, and they have brought me a total of 0 points between them, so that's a little disappointing. But I only have myself to blame, particularly with Lisowski. :wink:

Fantastic preview from Odrl, as we've come to expect. One question for you Odrl: can you list some of the 'lot of ways' that you think the old tiered qualifying system is the 'superior' one? I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts, preferably in as much detail as you put into your excellent previews

I know I am in the minority here, but I did like the old system better. It had its disadvantages, like players being guaranteed to appear at venues even when they were clearly out of form, or other players getting stuck in the qualifiers even with a win or two in most events, because they had to get through too many rounds to reach the venue stage. Whereas now, only a single win is needed in most events to get to the venue, so a player would have to have a really bad season to repeatedly miss out.

So, while the new system looks fairer in terms of how many matches each player has to play, I think the old system was fairer in terms of the competition players were likely to face. Each player opened with a match against someone fairly close to their own level, and their draw wasn't all that important, because there wasn't a huge difference between the best and the worst-case scenario. Players who were consistently losing their first qualifying match in events dropped down the rankings, players who were winning one stayed about the same, and players who were winning more than one generally climbed up, because they were beating players above them in the rankings.

But if you look at the best and the worst-case draw under the current system, the difference is pretty dramatic. A young player such as Zhou Yuelong, for example, has the same chance of being drawn against Stuart Carrington, the 63rd player in the rankings, or against someone like Selby or Robertson, so he could be playing way better than his ranking suggests and still go out in his first match, mostly through bad luck. Luca Brecel played superbly to reach the semi-finals of the Welsh Open last season, but immediately prior to the tournament there was a bloc of qualifying, where his one and only chance to qualify for the China Open was to beat Ronnie O'Sullivan, which is pretty harsh on anyone. I have no clue what the financial implications of each system are, so I might think differently if I was a player or a manager myself, but it just seems like the old system offered a more reliable chance for players to improve, even though it was a little slower.

Of course I look at it mostly from the perspective of a snooker fan, so another thing I liked about the old system was that it guaranteed a better field at venues. You almost never got sections of the draw full of outsiders, so everyone who reached the business end of a tournament really had to earn it. The one example I always give is Stuart Pettman in the 2009 China Open. He started in the 2nd qualifying round and beat Peter Lines, Alan McManus and Steve Davis to qualify for Beijing, then beat three top16 players at the venue to reach the semi-finals, Mark Allen, Ali Carter and Graeme Dott. Pettman was a professional for 20 years, and in his time the achievement of reaching the semi-finals of a major ranking event seemed a little grander than it does today, at least in my opinion. The draw could open up a little, sure, but a lower-ranked player almost certainly had to face a top16 seed somewhere along the way, and most likely more than one. So it must have been a satisfying result for Pettman, especially as he would then go back to the qualifiers and face players who could not claim to have done the same.

If you compare it to the system we have now, in the very first tournament, the 2013 Wuxi Classic, Robert Milkins reached the semi-finals with wins over Robbie Williams, John Astley, Jimmy White, Scott Donaldson and Anthony Hamilton. He was ranked outside of the top16 at the time, but the draw worked out so that he was the favourite in every match he played until the semi-finals. It's just not the same kind of achievement. Or take Andrew Higginson's run to the final of the 2007 Welsh Open for example. For him to get that far meant he had to beat the likes of Fu, Higgins, Maguire and Carter, so that was a week he will always be remembered for, whereas Ben Woollaston is unlikely to get the same kind of recognition for reaching the final last season, mainly because the new system has made those runs easier and more common, at least that's the impression I get. Of course there is also the issue of events being dumbed down with shorter matches, but I suppose that's beside the point. If you look at some of my older tournament previews, they are a lot shorter, partly because I probably couldn't be bothered, but there were also a lot of players whom one couldn't really write anything about, whereas now every Gary Wilson or Mark Joyce has had a good run somewhere. :wink: I suppose that's good in some ways, but it still feels like a little of the old magic is gone.

On a similar note, I'm not a big fan of losing the top players in the qualifying either. They don't get a large audience, so when Oliver Brown knocks Ding Junhui out of the Wuxi Classic he doesn't really get much credit, whereas James Cahill beating Ding at the venue in the UK Championship is big news. The fact that qualifying is often held a lot earlier than the venue stage itself doesn't help either, since the form that got some surprising qualifiers through might be long gone once we get to the venue, and they end up adding very little to the tournament. In that respect I think it was a good idea to have the top players protected, because at the very least they raised interest in the tournament, even if it turned out they were out of form.

I've got used to the new system now, and I don't think it's all that important anyway, certainly not enough to waste time criticizing it, but as I said, I did prefer the old one. :smile: