UK Championship Full Preview

It's that time of the year again folks! Yes that's right time for the first Triple Crown event of the season, and the first BBC event since the World Championships in April... The UK Championships, from the Barbican Centre in York. Even though the format for most of the event has been shortened in recent years, the format is still a longer format (and the same as last years event) and the event is still one that I certainly look forward to on the calendar every year. One thing that has changed this year, is the conversion of this event to the Flat 128 structure, although not in the same way as all of the other events. This is mainly because, the structure sees that the top seed, plays the bottom seed, and that it works through from there. For example: Seed 1 Vs Seed 128, would then play the winner of Seed 64 Vs Seed 65 in the Last 64 and so on. What that should mean (though nothing is ever certain) is that all of the top 16 players should make it through to the latter stages, and that the top seeds have draws that make it more favourable for them to go very deep in the tournament, rather than it being a random draw of the Top 64 seeds against the bottom 64 seeds for the first round.

That has basically all been done for the benefit of the BBC who don't want to see the likes of Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson, Judd Trump etc. knocked out before the tournament really gets going and the viewers get a good chance to see them. Another thing it should also see is a lot of classic matches at the back end of the event. I hope the BBC really step up their coverage of the event, although that already looks unlikely as rumour has it that the morning matches aren't being covered by anyone, once we get into the TV stages. The BBC's coverage, has started to go down hill a fair bit lately, and with the job that ITV4 have done recently on the Champion of Champions event, they could soon have some competition for the Triple Crown events which they cover at present.

Anyway, here's what we can expect in the next 13 days then, with the usual terrible predictions:

Quarter 1

Last 128 Draw:

Mark Selby Vs Shane Castle
Tian Pengfei Vs Pankaj Advani
Ken Doherty Vs John Astley
Ben Woollaston Vs Stuart Carrington
Graeme Dott Vs Fraser Patrick
Nigel Bond Vs Craig Steadman
Ali Carter Vs Ratchayothin Yotharuck
Jimmy Robertson Vs Li Yan
Jamie Jones Vs Gary Wilson
Dominic Dale Vs Vinnie Calabrese
Cao Yupeng Vs Zhang Anda
Barry Hawkins Vs Alexander Ursenbache
Anthony Hamilton Vs Sean O'Sullivan
Tom Ford Vs Noppon Saengkham
Gerard Greene Vs Paul Davison
Shaun Murphy Vs Lee Spick

The top quarter is one that is certainly filled with talent, with plenty of big match experience including the defending champion Mark Selby, last year's runner-up Shaun Murphy, former world champion Graeme Dott, and former world championship runners-up Ali Carter and Barry Hawkins. When it comes to these big triple crown events, I only really look at the big players to come through, and with the draw the way it is, it is very difficult to see the likes of Tom Ford, Dominic Dale or Ben Woollaston upsetting the odds despite their capabilities. For me, Mark Selby is probably in the best form of the players in this section at the moment, winning the Antwerp Open and making the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions. From the rest, I still think that we haven't seen the best of Shaun Murphy this season, and with a pretty favourable draw for him to play himself into a bit of from, and if he can recreate some of the form he showed last year he will go far again in this event. You can never rule Ali Carter and Graeme Dott out either (who could meet in the Last 32) and with them coming back into some form this could be a very entertaining quarter indeed. For me though, Selby has definetly showed signs of not being at his best in the semi-final of the Champion of Champions and Murphy may not be a bad bet at 22/1 for the tournament, though I don't really see it happening.

Quarter Winner: Mark Selby in the best form out of the guys in this section

Quarter 2

Last 128 Draw:

Judd Trump Vs Gareth Green
Dechawat Poomjaeng Vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Xiao Guodong Vs Andrew Pagett
Mark Joyce Vs Jamie O'Neill
Mark Allen Vs Jak Jones
Dave Harold Vs Chen Zhe
Michael Holt Vs Lee Page
Alan McManus Vs Joel Walker
Rory McLeod Vs Martin O'Donnell
Mark Williams Vs Allan Taylor
Peter Lines Vs Sam Baird
Ricky Walden Vs Cao Xin Long
Fergal O'Brien Vs Alex Davies
Mark King Vs Ross Muir
James Wattana Vs Ian Burns
Ding Junhui Vs Anthony Parsons

This quarter sees the likes of former UK champions Ding Junhui, Judd Trump and Mark Williams, while Mark Allen has also been in a UK final before, and Ricky Walden has previously been in World and UK semi-finals. I don't really see anyone else in the quarter that could possibly get past the names that are involved. Ding Junhui probably has the best form and the most favourable draw out of everyone in this section, while Allen is in good form, but faces a possible Last 16 match with Judd Trump who has also been playing decent stuff coming into this, but will be under a lot of pressure desperately needing a run, having won the event 2 years ago. Meanwhile, with Ding on a run of 3 ranking event wins in a row, and Mark Allen winning European Tours 5 and 6, Trump will certainly have to step it up if he is going to win this section. So, I think it will be a quarter-final showdown between Allen and Ding, and the way the 2 are playing either one could win, but I feel that Ding would just edge what would be a very tense match. Mark Williams and Ricky Walden could never be ruled out of runs if they got going, but Williams draw is quite tough now he is out of the top 16, and Walden is in quite poor form really.

Quarter Winner: Ding Junhui

Quarter 3

Last 128 Draw:

Neil Robertson Vs Dylan Mitchell
Aditya Mehta Vs Robbie Williams
Andrew Higginson Vs Hammad Miah
David Gilbert Vs Li Hang
Mark Davis Vs Robin Hull
Matt Selt V Scott Donaldson
Joe Perry Vs James Cahill
Alfie Burden Vs Daniel Wells
Jamie Burnett Vs Simon Bedford
Ryan Day Vs Chris Wakelin
Rod Lawler Vs Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon
John Higgins Vs Alex Borg
Jack Lisowski Vs Michael Leslie
Liang Wenbo Vs Elliot Slessor
Mike Dunn Vs Luca Brecel
Stephen Maguire Vs Sanderson Lam

Again this another quarter filled with plenty of quality players including former World champions Neil Robertson and John Higgins, former UK champion Stephen Maguire, World Championship semi-finalist Joe Perry and last years UK semi-finalist Mark Davis. Robertson is clearly the in-form man out of the guys in this quarter, making centuries for fun and leading the current world rankings by a mile of the rest. Maguire's form is not bad, making a decent impression in the Champion of Champions, while Higgins looked good despite his early exit. Perry has also been playing very well and is capable of run that could win this quarter, as he showed when he made the semi's of the recent International Championships. Mark Davis is struggling though, and I can't see him matching his run of last year at the York Barbican. I think it could well be a Maguire/Robertson quarter-final, and that would be one i'd certainly fancy Robbo, and having never won the UK Championship's before he will desperate to end that this year. The likes of Higgins and Perry could never be ruled out though and I wouldn't be surprised if they won this quarter either.

A note does have to go to 1 very important match in this section as far as tour survival goes and that is Mike Dunn against Luca Brecel. Both players in this one need the win to boost their prize money ranking and that could be a very nervy match. However, I think that Dunn should just steal it and go one step closer to staying on the tour for next year.

Quarter Winner: Got to be Neil Robertson looking at how well he's been playing.

Quarter 4

Last 128 Draw:

Marco Fu Vs Mitchell Travis
Kurt Maflin Vs Liam Highfield
Peter Ebdon Vs Andrew Norman
Jamie Cope Vs David Morris
Stuart Bingham Vs Ahmed Saif
Jimmy White Vs Michael Wasley
Martin Gould Vs Chris Norbury
Anthony McGill Vs Kyren Wilson
Yu De Lu Vs David Grace
Matthew Stevens Vs Ryan Clark
Liu Chuang Vs Tony Drago
Robert Milkins Vs Patrick Einslie
Michael White Vs Joe Swail
Marcus Campbell Vs Lu Haotian
Adam Duffy Vs Barry Pinches
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Rhys Clark

The final quarter of the draw sees the likes of World Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, former UK runner-up Marco Fu, former UK champion Matthew Stevens, Champion of Champions runner-up Stuart Bingham, Robert Milkins and Martin Gould. This should be a really competitive quarter with the likes of O'Sullivan, Fu and Bingham all in good form at the moment, while Gould also showed signs of coming into some form at the Champion of Champions and Milkins and Stevens are both very quality players despite some inconsistent form over the past few months. It will be very hard to stop Ronnie the way he's playing, especially when he says that there is even more to come from him. Fu and Bingham will probably be his biggest competition, though Bingham's record in UK ranking events isn't fantastic, and I think that Fu would come through to meet Ronnie in the quarter-final. However, if O'Sullivan plays as well as he did in Coventry, and is really up for the fight again (which will be the key) he should breeze through the quarter, and would probably go on and win the event, but we'll just have to wait and see.

Another thing to note from this quarter is an absolutely vital match when it comes to tour survival, between Adam Duffy and Barry Pinches. The draw being the way it is, one of these was bound to happen, and both players really do need a couple of wins to boost their prize money ranking, currently hovering in the danger zone. Looking at the form guide you'd have to say that Barry would pinch it, though form won't count for much in such an important match, with plenty of nerves.

Quarter Winner: I'd be mad not to pick Ronnie O'Sullivan


Whatever happens it should be an absolutely cracking event given the way the draw is set out, although there is always one unpredictable result that will stir things up somewhere along the line. Still, I'm really looking forward to what should be a great event, and I'll be back to have another look at the tournament ahead of the start of the TV stages on Saturday.

The match schedule, with all of the start times for the next few days can be found on the world snooker live scores website, if you want to know what's coming up before the start of the TV coverage on Saturday.