Robertson takes China Crown

Neil Robertson won his first ranking event since the 2010 World Open and his first in China, beating world no.1 Mark Selby 10-6 in the China Open final in Beijing. The win now puts Robbo up to number 2 in the world and drops him into Selby's half of the draw for the World Championship.

Final Review

Mark Selby started ok with breaks of 58 and 42 in the first frame, but unfortunately for the Jester there was nothing much to laugh about as he found himself 6-1 down at the end of the first session, that was cut down due to some lengthy fourth, fifth and sixth. Robertson made breaks of 50 and 91 to take a 2-1 lead and did not look back taking a serious of scrappy and long frames.

The second session was much more entertaining as Mark Selby began to make a fightback turning a 6-1 defecit around to only being 6-4 down. This came after early breaks of 81, 125 and 66. Neil held his nerve before the final mid-session interval, as he took a 7-4 lead with a nicely made 110. He took the next two as well including a 90 in the thirteenth, to go 9-4 ahead and one frame from victory. As always though, Selby battled on and attempted to reduce the defecit. He did so to start with as Robertson didn't score in the next two frames as Selby made contributions of 116 and 63 to get it back to 9-6. He couldn't keep it going though and Robertson did enough to take the title 10-6, despite the scare of Selby needing 5 snookers and reducing the defecit to only 1 until the Aussie potted the green.

This was a well deserved victory for Neil Robertson (the man that i predicted would win before the tournaments begining). It also meant a lot to him and after a series of final defeats this season that will be a huge relief and confidence boost to him before the World Championships. Selby will also be pleased to reach the final after some disapointing results in recent events before the and will boost his World Title hopes. Stephen Maguire showed good form in the semi-finals as he hopes for his first Crucible win. Shaun Murphy will be pleased to reach the semi's as well, after some poor tournaments since The Masters. The comeback against Lisowski will give him confidence, and to make the semi-finals when not playing well will be a boost to him, and makes him a dark horse for the worlds. Disapointing results for Judd Trump, John Higgins and Matthew Stevens will give them something to think about as well as Graeme Dott who has not been in form at all this season, and the scot will need to improve massively or face a similar result to last year's embarrassing performance against Joe Perry.

Of course their will be much more build-up before the start on April 20th of the biggest tournament of the season. This will include updates and analysis of the world qualifiers and then a good luck at the main Crucible draw. Less than 3 weeks left and i'm sure everyone in the snooker world is looking forward to the 17 day event.