Championship League: Group 3 Day 1

After a brilliant week at the Masters, we didn't have to wait long for the next competitive snooker on the tour as the Championship League returns this week for groups 3 and 4. Yesterday saw the opening day of Group 3 and there was a little bit to discuss early on as we had another withdrawal. This time Ricky Walden (who has been struggling with a shoulder problem lately and has no other events in the next month having failed to qualify for the German Masters) withdrew late on and was replaced by Peter Ebdon (who was actually a spectator at the Masters Final won by the magnificent Shaun Murphy).

After all that it was hardly a great start for Peter on day one as he was beaten in every single one of his three games, and he was last to finish in the evening as you'd expect. There were better starts though for Stuart Bingham and Judd Trump who had both lost in finals of the opening two groups as Stuart won 3 of his opening 4 matches, while Trump won 2 of his opening 3 games, as did newcomer for group 3 Ryan Day. Mark Davis and Marco Fu also completed two victories on day one, but those were from 4 matches which leaves them a little bit of work to do today. Finally, Ali Carter fresh from his Masters quarter-final, could only find one victory from his opening three games and really needs to string some wins together today to survive elimination from the Championship League by finishing in the bottom two.

This is my picture proof of everything that happened yesterday with the day one table at the bottom:

 

 

 

So, as you can see from that Stuart Bingham, Ryan Day and Judd Trump are looking pretty comfortable and a win or two for Day and Trump should see them into the semi-finals, while Bingham really only needs a further win to guarantee his place. Mark Davis and Marco Fu could do with a win each, but may need two depending on how the other players in that top 3 so far perform, but they really do need at least one to stop them looking too far back over their shoulders. With three remaining games, Ali Carter and Peter Ebdon aren't totally down and out yet. If Ali could win two of his remaining three the chances are that he'd survive elimination, while Peter probably needs a clean sweep of wins, having won only three frames on day one.

 

 

That's all from me for today, hopefully it should be an interesting days snooker today and when i come back tomorrow for a quick update, we'll have another player to join Barry Hawkins and Matt Selt in the Winners Group.