It's semi-finals time at the Champion of Champions in Coventry after the final group was played out yesterday. The day started off with a brilliant ovation for Ali Carter (in Ricky Walden's waistcoat after forgetting his) on his full return to snooker after treatment for lung cancer as he took on Neil Robertson. It wasn't to be for Carter in terms of a winning return though as Neil Robertson got the job done comfortably with breaks of 50, 106 and 111 on the way to completing a 4-0 whitewash and getting into the group final. Neil was joined in the group final by Ricky Walden after he continued where he left off in Chengdu, by beating Mark Allen again, 4-0 this time after Mark really didn't get going. Walden looked to be in good rhythm again with breaks of 53, 57, 58 and 86 on the way to that victory and it was going to be a very interesting group final with Robertson. The first six frames of the match were shared as Walden made breaks of 87 and 61 while Neil Robertson had breaks of 59, 64 and a new tournament highest break of 134 to see it at 3-3. Neil Robertson then won a large safety battle on the black in the next frame after Ricky missed a tricky frame ball pink to the middle earlier in the frame and that made it 4-3 to the Australian. From there tiredness just caught up with Walden as Neil seemed to be taking an exceedingly long time over shots and it was Robertson who won the final two frames of the match to take a 6-3 win.
Group 3 semi-finals:
Neil Robertson 4-0 Ali Carter
Ricky Walden 4-0 Mark Allen
Group 3 Final:
Neil Robertson 6-3 Ricky Walden
What that now means is that today's semi-finals will be contested over the best of 11 frames between Ronnie O'Sullivan and Ding Junhui in the afternoon and then Neil Robertson and Judd Trump in the evening, in what has the potential to be a day of snooker that could produce a couple of classic matches. They're looking like two very tough matches to call and I'm looking forward to watching both games unfold today.
Semi-Final Preview: (Picks in bold)
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Ding Junhui - Ronnie O'Sullivan played brilliantly on Wednesday to defeat Stuart Bingham and then an under par Marco Fu in group 1 and I'm sure he'll continue that form today in a match he'll very much be pumped up for in front of a brilliant Coventry crowd this week, in what he says is already one of his favourite venues. Ronnie just loves these big UK events and he always seems to come to them playing his best when he's in the right frame of mind and he seems to have a very good mind-set again this week, so I expect some big Ronnie O'Sullivan entertainment this afternoon. He also has the head to head massively on his side having thrashed him in their recent Welsh Open final in February while Ronnie also won their meeting in last years Group final 6-5 coming from behind there. Ding Junhui played some decent snooker on Monday, but he'll need to improve if he's to beat Ronnie today. Having had four days off since he just got over the line on Monday evening against Barry Hawkins, he should've put in some hard practice and be well prepared for this match so it should be a close one.
Neil Robertson Vs Judd Trump - The thing I like about this match is that it's an incredibly tough match to call. Judd Trump played some amazing snooker on Tuesday, some of the best I've seen him play in a long time so he'll be very confident coming into this after the thrashings he handed out to Maguire and Selby in Group 2. Judd though is very much a momentum player in my opinion and when he gets on a roll he'll stay there for a while, but then may struggle to pick such a high level up again straight away for the next tournament perhaps. Where that comes in here is because Judd has had a full 3 days off and will now want to pick up straight from where he left off on Tuesday but that's a very tough ask and would mean that he'd have needed to put in some seriously hard practice to try and maintain that momentum. Trumps problem will come if he doesn't start well and he begins to get frustrated, like he has done on several of the occasions he's exited in the early stages of ranking events over the last year or so. Neil Robertson meanwhile would've been fresh coming into yesterday and now gets the opportunity to pick his momentum from yesterday (where he made 3 centuries) straight up again today and really push Judd from the very opening frame. Neil did a professional job on Carter and Walden in group 3 and when he's in that sort of mood he doesn't care about his opponent. Neil did a similar job in the final two sessions of the pairs World Championship clash earlier this year and Judd became very frustrated with how slowly Neil was playing, so he needs to deal with those feelings better this time around. The head to head with these two guys is very equal with the players trading blows fairly equally with each one seeming like a revenge match. Today I have the feeling that Neil knows how to get under Trump's skin and he's going to set out to do that from the very first shot.
As I said earlier these should be two very close matches and I'm really looking forward to watching the coverage this afternoon on ITV4 (which has been superb once again this week) and whatever happens in today's games it will be an exciting final tomorrow and i'll be back in the morning to preview that game and look back on these semi-finals.
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