As we enter the big period of winter snooker now we've also entered the longer format events starting here with the games being best-of-11 frames from the Last 64 up to and including the quarter-finals, with the semi-finals being best-of-17 frames (which is something I'd like to see a lot more of in ranking events) and the usual best-of-19 frames final. Hopefully the longer format will set up some more classic matches to come this week, and looking at the draw there are certainly a few candidates for possible classics.
Now of course it's time for me to take a look at the draw, as always focussing on each quarter and trying (usually unsuccessfully) to pick out some quarter winners before deciding on an overall tournament tip:
Quarter 1
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in bold)Wang Zepeng Vs Mitchell Mann/Niu Zhuang
Michael White Vs Aditya Mehta
Dominic Dale Vs Ian Burns
Graeme Dott Vs Craig Steadman
Stuart Bingham Vs Robbie Williams
Ryan Day Vs Mark Joyce
Martin Gould Vs Joel Walker
Mark Allen Vs Nigel Bond
The top quarter of the draw is honestly packed with big names that could all go on and win make the semi-finals this week and, in many cases go a couple better than that by winning the title. The likes of Paul Hunter Classic champion Mark Allen, Shanghai Masters and Asian Tour 2 champion Stuart Bingham, Bulgarian Open runner-up Martin Gould, AT2 147 man Ryan Day, Graeme Dott, Dominic Dale and Michael White are all capable of winning this quarter this coming week.
Ryan Day made a maximum this week at the Asian Tour event before losing out in the quarter-finals to Oli Lines, showing that he's clearly in very good form coming into this event. He also made the semi-finals of the first Asian Tour event of the season and his form has really picked up in 2014 with runs to the Last 16 of the Shanghai Masters, Wuxi Classic and the World Championships as well as a German Masters semi-final in February. Ryan belongs in the top 16 and he's not very far away from that right now in his current position of 20th in the World and I fully expect him to be a Top 16 payer again before the 2015 World Championships. If Ryan can get a couple of early wins and keep working hard this week, he has as good a chance as anyone of making it into the last 4.
Mark Allen has made an incredibly good start to this season and his form coming into this event is simply stunning. After a first round exit in Australia (his first event of the season) Mark has gone on to make the Riga Open Final where he lost out to a Mark Selby comeback, win the Paul Hunter Classic beating Judd Trump in the final, and reach the final of the Shanghai Masters where he was thrashed by Stuart Bingham. All the evidence is there that Mark could win this title, especially with his 2 ranking wins coming in China, and with a ranking final in China to his name already this season I feel like a big big ranking event title can't be far away for the Northern-Irishman and it could well be this week. This quarter is a tough one for him to get out of, but if he can do that then he'd certainly have the confidence to go all the way.
However, a big presence in this quarter who will want to stop Mark doing that is Stuart Bingham. Stuart is on a really good run of form out in China with his first full ranking title out there coming last month at the Shanghai Masters while he won yet another Asian Tour event last week beating Oli Lines in the final, and that is his 4th Asian Tour title of all time which is huge going considering how long the Asian Tour has actually been running. While he may have been struggling a little in the European Tour events, Bingham has become a very consistent player with dips in form only being occasional nowadays and his run to the UK Championship semi-finals last season in my view was his best ever performance, proving that he could compete in these very big events. With his game in such good shape right now, Stuart has to be a title contender this week.
Quarter Winner: Stuart Bingham
Quarter 2
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in bold)Barry Hawkins Vs Jimmy White
Mark Williams Vs Oli Brown
Kyren Wilson Vs Sam Baird
Mark Davis Vs Dechawat Poomjaeng
John Higgins Vs Li Hang
Kurt Maflin Vs Jamie Jones/Zhao Xintong
Alan McManus Vs Anthony McGill
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Ben Woollaston
The 2nd section of the draw is also stacked full of talent with Masters champion Ronnie O'Sullivan of course being the biggest name, while Barry Hawkins, Mark Williams, Mark Davis, John Higgins and Alan McManus all well capable of winning the quarter and the event but not all of these players are in top form right now.
John Higgins has been struggling a lot once again at the start of this season after his poor form during the second half of last season particularly. He's only managed one last 16 appearance in either a ranking event or a European Tour event, which came at the Australian Open. This week, John is just as likely to be beaten in the first round with a tough game against Li Hang to start things off, as he is to make it to even the quarter-finals. You can never write off John Higgins, but my view is that he has the game to win another ranking event or 2 before his career reaches a full decline, but at the end of the day at the age of 39 with a family, his days at the top of the snooker rankings are behind him and he probably doesn't have the consistency to ever make it back near the top 8 in the world again. A big run from the Scot this week is therefore not impossible, but becoming more and more unlikely as the clock continues to tick.
Ronnie O'Sullivan is always a big contender for any tournament he enters such is the nature of his ability to breeze through a draw on any given week, without anyone being able to push him close at all. Form never comes into things with Ronnie, especially in the last couple of years, winning the 2013 World Championship having entered nothing for the rest of that 2012/2013 season. He's been playing a lot more than that since, but only entering the biggest events unlike the very top players who enter the large majority of tournaments. This season so far has seen Ronnie enter the Paul Hunter Classic where he lost out in the Last 16 and a first round exit at the Shanghai Masters to in-form Alan McManus who he could face in the Last 32 and if that draw came off I think Alan has every chance of winning, just as Ben Woollaston does in the Last 64. The only real evidence that Ronnie could win the title this week is his very presence in the draw. His record in China hasn't been brilliant in recent years which was outlined by a Last 32 exit here last year to Liang Wenbo and a Last 32 exit in last months Shanghai Masters. Generally I don't think Ronnie plays enough competitive snooker in China, compared to the rest of the top pros who are well acclimatised to Asian conditions, and this is the simple difference between his record when picking and choosing events in the UK compared to China, and why he can't simply come over for this event and be a favourite. My gut feeling is that Ronnie will have his work cut out for him this week.
Mark Davis is a player that was described to me the other week by someone I won't name as an "Asian specialist" because of the way he's played in Asia over recent years compared to the UK. I think that is a fair enough view to have of him and he has proved that in recent years. Just a week ago he made the semi-finals of the General Cup, a tournament he won the year before. His record in the 6 Reds Championship in Thailand has been impeccable, but in ranking events in China he hasn't quite stepped up yet, but given his form this week could be that big breakthrough. After a very poor end to last season, Mark has started off much better this year with 1 ranking event semi-final already under his belt in Australia along with a quarter-final appearance in the recent ET in Bulgaria so he'll be keen to add to that with another good run here, and I think the draw could well open up for him to do so.
Quarter Winner: Mark Davis
Quarter 3
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in bold)Neil Robertson Vs Matt Selt
Andrew Higginson Vs Joe Swail/Yan Bingtao
Chris Melling Vs Zhou Yuelong
Ricky Walden Vs David Morris
Joe Perry Vs Mike Dunn
Peter Ebdon Vs Andrew Pagett
Matthew Stevens Vs Jamie Burnett
Judd Trump Vs Jimmy Robertson
The first section of the bottom half of the draw has another load of top players all capable of making good runs in this event. Neil Roberson made the final 2 years ago so he could use another big run this week with money to defend. Peter Ebdon also has some money to defend having made the semi-finals 2 years ago, and with his recent form he could do so again this week. Judd Trump, Joe Perry, Ricky Walden and Matthew Stevens are the other top names in this section and in my view this section is the most likely to produce our tournament winner.
The vegan power of Peter Ebdon could well be back on the menu this week in Chengdu with the 44 year old re-discovering some of his best form again in the last month with very strong runs at both the Bulgarian Open where he lost a close semi-final to Martin Gould, before losing out in the quarter-finals at the recent Asian Tour 2 in a decider to Matt Selt. We all know that Peter Ebdon enjoys playing in China with his record both at the China Open which he has won on a couple of occasions, along with this event reaching the quarter-finals and semi-finals in the 2 years it's been staged losing out to the eventual winner on both occasions. If you want an outside bet to win this quarter or the tournament as a whole, Peter Ebdon is probably your man and I hope he can have a good run this week, especially with the long format.
Judd Trump has an incredibly good start to this season with strong showings in a host of events big and small. Things really started to turn for Judd in Australia where he overcame home favourite Neil Robertson to win his first ranking title since winning this event back in 2012, which for a guy of Judd's talent and class is a very long gap between full ranking titles. It's hard to say that Judd was low on confidence prior to that Australia win but as tournaments went by and he wasn't quite having the runs he wanted you could see his confidence slowly dropping a little. A run to the final of February's German Masters helped pick him up a bit, but that didn't seem to last as long as he'd like and it still took him a full 5 months from that so called "boost" for him to win that title. Since July though Judd's reached the final of the Paul Hunter Classic, the quarter-finals of the Riga Open and the Last 16 of the Bulgarian Open which pretty much guarantees him his Players Championship Finals berth. He had a temporary blip in Shanghai where he lost in the first round to an inspired Dominic Dale and it is these occasional blips that has made him a hard man to predict over the last 2 years. However, if he does have his game together and get past a couple of tricky early games I could see him ripping through the field and walking away with the title.
Finally in this quarter, Neil Robertson will be a huge contender for both the quarter and the title this week. Neil will see this as a big opportunity in the rankings with Selby and Ding his ranking neighbours failing to qualify and he'll be gutted not to take advantage. Having won the Wuxi Classic earlier in the season to continue his brilliance in these Chinese ranking events (it's hard to believe he struggled in China as little as 2 years ago in his book) and making the final of the Australian Open he had a very solid start to the season. Since then he has struggled slightly, with finishes of the Last 64, Last 16 and the Last 64 in the 3 European Tour events and a first round exit in the Shanghai Masters. His first round match is a tough one against Matt Selt who is both a good friend of Neil's and a man that made the semi-finals of the recent AT2. The thing with Neil though is that he always seems to bring his best for the really big events and the events that he's really motivated and prepared to do well in and you can guarantee that this event will be one that he wants to win having been a runner-up 2 years ago. It would be a very brave man to say that Neil is not a very big contender for the title this coming week.
Quarter Winner: Neil Robertson
Quarter 4
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in bold)Shaun Murphy Vs Yu De Lu
Robert Milkins Vs Barry Pinches
Xiao Guodong Vs Eden Sharav
Stephen Maguire Vs Noppon Saengkham
Marco Fu Vs Liam Highfield
David Gilbert Vs Zak Surety
Fergal O'Brien Vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Rod Lawler Vs Oli Lines/Huang Jiahao
The final quarter of the draw has some very big names in it with recent Bulgarian Open champion Shaun Murphy heading the field in this section, with 6 Reds champion Stephen Maguire following along with last years runner-up Marco Fu a big threat. Young Oli Lines could also cause some damage again in this weeks draw having just reached the final of the Asian Tour event in the last week losing out to Bingham.
Starting with Maguire, other than that win in the 6 Reds (which really counts for very little) he's not had much of a run in any ranking or European Tour events yet other than at the very start of the season where he reached the quarter-finals of the Wuxi Classic. All in all, 2014 has been a pretty inconsistent year for Maguire and there's really been no sign of it turning around at any stage. Any tip for him to do well this week really would be taking a punt.
Marco Fu's season so far has been a similar tale of inconsistency that Stephen Maguire has shown. Other than a run to the quarter-finals in both Wuxi and ET1 in Latvia, Marco has struggled, particularly with first round exits in Shanghai and Bulgaria most recently, while at last weeks General Cup he failed to win any of his 3 group games. For a time last season it looked like Marco had settled his problems with inconsistency and a lot of hard work has been going into that for Marco, but with results in 2014 to go by it seems like he may be back to square one a little in the sense that he's become a terribly unpredictable player again this season. It would take a big turnaround in his fortunes for him to have a big run of form this week, but I wouldn't rule it out.
Shaun Murphy though, seems to be one of the main men in form at the moment on the snooker tour and he'll be coming into this tournament full of confidence and belief that he can have a good run and pick up some more big ranking money. Murphy has been one of the best players of 2014 as a calendar year and his turnaround in fortunes from January to now is quite remarkable looking back on it. In January Shaun won't mind me saying that his confidence was shot and he was struggling badly, to the point in a Post-Masters semi-final interview he hinted that snooker wasn't quite as enjoyable as it was. Those comments were of course heat of the moment and he cleared things up nicely by winning in Gdynia in February followed by a full ranking win at March's World Open. Quarter-finals in the World Championship and the season starting Wuxi Classic were good performances that could've been better and after a slight blip at the back end of the summer, Murphy was back to winning ways a few weeks ago by blitzing through the field to win the Bulgarian Open title. Last week he went out to Hong Kong for the General Cup losing out in the final to Carter in a decider after another solid week. Shaun looks forward to playing in these big events as much as any other player on tour, matched with his newly regained confidence and form of 2014, he's an incredibly dangerous animal and one of the favourites for the title this week.
Quarter Winner: Shaun Murphy
Tournament Runner-Up: Stuart Bingham
Tournament Winner: Neil Robertson
I've been looking forward to this event for a long time as it really kick starts the season with the tournaments coming thick and fast from here really right up until the end of the season with a pretty hectic second half of the season coming in. With it's format as well I'm sure we'll see plenty of quality matches this week in a tournament that seems to be right up there with the UK Championships. I have to say it's going to be a very enjoyable week and i'll be bringing you updates throughout so be sure to stick around for those.
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