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Right, I did a little digging, and I'm pretty sure the last time the top four seeds reached the SF in a ranking event was the European Open in March of 2003. Quite remarkable that it hasn't happened in almost 7 years.
We have an interesting situation this season... Higgins and O'Sullivan can't meet in the final of any event where one of them isn't the defending champion. But they've met in the SF of every ranking event, except the Grand Prix where the random draw made it impossible. I wonder what some of the finals would have been had Higgins and O'Sullivan avoided each other.
But they meet again... Higgins has had a very good record in their meetings for a long time now. But there's been a lot of deciders and close matches that could have gone either way. I think today could be one of those. O'Sullivan played brilliantly against Allen. He won four frames in one visit, and only missed once before the frame was safe. It could have been an even more remarkable performance had he not twitched on that green for the maximum. But that was a very open match, and O'Sullivan got some openings through Allen's mistakes. Allen had no choice but to go for his shots, he couldn't have expected to put O'Sullivan in trouble with his tactical play. But Higgins is in a different class. He won't be leaving many openings, especially if O'Sullivan can't rely on his long game, which remains to be seen of course. Higgins seems to be scoring pretty well himself, and looks very determined to get a result in this tournament. I think he'll come into the match very determined to take his chances and keep O'Sullivan off the table. In any case, I predict a close match, and a slight edge to Higgins.
Maguire and Carter are in a similar position to where Ding was at the UK Championship. They'll be hoping that O'Sullivan and Higgins can somewhat cancel each other out. But with the way Maguire played last night, I don't think he has to rely on hope. He looked as determined and composed as if he was playing Murphy. We've been waiting for a long time to have him back, and I think this is the week. Maguire-Carter is not a common pairing, in fact, I'm struggling to remember any match between them off the top of my head. I don't think either of them will have any psychological edge, but the form edge might be with Maguire. Carter is actually a similar player style wise. He has that great one-visit scoring ability that some of the top players have, and we've seen it a lot last season, in this tournament in particular. I don't think he's quite there yet this year, but he's been slowly improving after a poor start to the season, and he could be strong in April. But I think Maguire will outplay him today, 6-3ish.
I'm quite anxious for it to start now.
We have an interesting situation this season... Higgins and O'Sullivan can't meet in the final of any event where one of them isn't the defending champion. But they've met in the SF of every ranking event, except the Grand Prix where the random draw made it impossible. I wonder what some of the finals would have been had Higgins and O'Sullivan avoided each other.
But they meet again... Higgins has had a very good record in their meetings for a long time now. But there's been a lot of deciders and close matches that could have gone either way. I think today could be one of those. O'Sullivan played brilliantly against Allen. He won four frames in one visit, and only missed once before the frame was safe. It could have been an even more remarkable performance had he not twitched on that green for the maximum. But that was a very open match, and O'Sullivan got some openings through Allen's mistakes. Allen had no choice but to go for his shots, he couldn't have expected to put O'Sullivan in trouble with his tactical play. But Higgins is in a different class. He won't be leaving many openings, especially if O'Sullivan can't rely on his long game, which remains to be seen of course. Higgins seems to be scoring pretty well himself, and looks very determined to get a result in this tournament. I think he'll come into the match very determined to take his chances and keep O'Sullivan off the table. In any case, I predict a close match, and a slight edge to Higgins.
Maguire and Carter are in a similar position to where Ding was at the UK Championship. They'll be hoping that O'Sullivan and Higgins can somewhat cancel each other out. But with the way Maguire played last night, I don't think he has to rely on hope. He looked as determined and composed as if he was playing Murphy. We've been waiting for a long time to have him back, and I think this is the week. Maguire-Carter is not a common pairing, in fact, I'm struggling to remember any match between them off the top of my head. I don't think either of them will have any psychological edge, but the form edge might be with Maguire. Carter is actually a similar player style wise. He has that great one-visit scoring ability that some of the top players have, and we've seen it a lot last season, in this tournament in particular. I don't think he's quite there yet this year, but he's been slowly improving after a poor start to the season, and he could be strong in April. But I think Maguire will outplay him today, 6-3ish.
I'm quite anxious for it to start now.
:snooker:
We're still today, y'know?
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