2017 China Championship

[Erwan_BZH]

That ref was all over the place when Shaund asked for the RED to be cleaned lol

[Lievro]

Come on Luca!!!

[JimMalone]

Congratulations to Luca Brecel. First Continental European Player to win a ranking event. And quite an important one. Belgium is the 13th "country" (let's call it this way) to win a ranking tournament.
Brecel will now move to #15 in the world rankings. In the list just calculated by the points of last season and this season, he's even #11 right now.

For the overall tournament it has to be said that this was one of the most underwhelming ones.

[PatBlock]

It's 7.45pm in China at the moment .........it's a Global sport , so they can't play the matches to suit all time zones .

So you want them to play at 2am , so that you can see it tonight .

You have a strange outlook on things .

Yeah but, on a Tuesday Neil?

-

[Lievro]

Almost in tears. YEEEESSSSS!!!!

[jimev]

He's worked hard for that so fair play. Not the best standard of play in this tournement by any means, mosty because of table conditions & how early in the season it is, but made up for Brecel - 150k in the bank!!

Can't believe he's still only 22! Think he could pick up quite a few trophies in the years ahead

[DeanH]

2017 China Championship

Been waiting for Luca to show all what he can do for years.
unfortunately did not see much of the match (family getting in the audience ) but one frame I did see (F8?) was very scrappy and Murphy was not taking the chances given.
well done Luca don't keep us waiting another 5years for the next :biggrin:

[motorhead]

easily one of the most embarrassing matches by Murphy. Appalling.

[Odrl]

Okay, the final wasn't far from what I expected, at least in terms of the standard of play. I did expect it to go a little closer though. The partial score after the first interval was 9-1 to Brecel, so there wasn't any real doubt about who the better player was.

Well done to Brecel, finally a major title that could help him make the next step and really become a top player. I just hope he doesn't get complacent after winning today. He must realize that he didn't really play any better than he did against Gould in Berlin last year, it was just that he came up against an opponent who was really out of sorts. He still needs to work hard to improve most elements of his game, otherwise he can't hope to repeat this success on a consistent basis. In any case, this will open a few doors for him in terms of invitational tournaments and the two "ranking events" that only feature the best 16 and 32 players. Unless I'm forgetting someone, Brecel is the youngest player to win a major event since Trump more than six years ago, which makes a nice change after all the success players in their 40s had last season. :smile:

As for Murphy, he played crap today, but it's not as if he had reached the final playing brilliant snooker. Quite frankly, I think he would have lost to Li Hang by a similar scoreline today as well. It's still early in the season though, and Murphy will inevitably have his periods of great form at some point.

All in all, this tournament had some good and some less good points. Holding it from Wednesday to Tuesday was a little unusual and probably didn't help the general atmosphere around it, but I can understand that some concessions have to be made if the venue is difficult to book. The conditions were poor all week, especially all the big bounces, and that was unusual to see in a Chinese tournament. Combined with it being the early season, it resulted in a very mediocre standard of play, even though virtually all of the top players were present. The winner's performance will probably go down as one of the weaker ones in the major ranking events I've watched over the years, but I guess we can't have world-class stuff every time. On a more positive note, the tournament was reasonably well supported. It had a few matches where the arena was quite empty, but all in all I thought it was way above average for a Chinese event. Also, it was nice to have a big tournament in this part of the season, because there was a noticeable gap in the calendar between May and October in the years after the Grand Prix was cancelled, and an event like this was really needed. Although for me personally, it's the format rather than prize money which gives a tournament a feeling of prestige, so I would still put it on par with the World Open and the China Open. It needed to have best-of-11 matches really to go along with the big first prize.

That's it for a while then, as far as major ranking snooker is concerned. I will still keep an eye on the Paul Hunter Classic and the Indian Open, but the next tournament I'm really looking forward to is the World Open, roughly a month from now. :smile:

[the lone wolf]

Great win... There's a new kid in town.
WELL DONE MR. BRECEL :snooker:

[itsnoteasy]

Well I'm going to say to Murphy what was said to me over thirty years ago. How can you look so good but play so bad!
Watch him cue and you would think a frame winning effort would be a done deal every chance he gets but he always seems to break down.

[golferson123]

Well I'm going to say to Murphy what was said to me over thirty years ago. How can you look so good but play so bad!
Watch him cue and you would think a frame winning effort would be a done deal every chance he gets but he always seems to break down.

the best swing in golf! won very little, Rafael Jacqueline, not how you do it, but what you do with it.

[Hal]

I am so pleased Luca won. Such a great talent, with many flaws though .... I am yet to watch the match as I have had to work (surprisingly). But I could not resist to check the scores, the result. I am just happy of the outcome. Maybe after I watch the game I will add more.

[Rane]

Well done and congratulations to Brecel. There hadn´t been many signs that he would make his breakthrough so it will be interesting to follow him in the next period of time. Will the win raise his overall confindencer or does he need some more years to mature as a player. No doubt he´s a future top player.

[itsnoteasy]

the best swing in golf! won very little, Rafael Jacqueline, not how you do it, but what you do with it.

Nice! I like that Golfy.