As I say it all starts on Wednesday afternoon with the bottom half of the draw playing their Last 32 matches, with 4 in the afternoon and 4 in the evening, while the top half plays there's on Thursday with 4 in the morning and the other 4 in the afternoon before the bottom half of the draw plays their 4 Last 16 matches on Thursday evening. Friday afternoon sees the remaining 4 Last 16 games, before the 4 quarter-finals take place on Friday evening. Obviously from there the 2 best-of-11 frames semi-finals are then on Saturday as we get down to one table, and the final is over the best-of-17 and two sessions on the Sunday. So, as always it should be a brilliant event and I'm really looking forward to it and here is how the draw for the event looks:
Quarter 1
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)Ding Junhui Vs Ryan Day
Alfie Burden Vs Michael Georgiou
Liang Wenbo Vs Li Hang
Stuart Bingham Vs Matt Selt
The top quarter of the draw is home of course to the defending champion Ding Junhui, but also the Shanghai Masters champion Stuart Bingham, along with Lisbon Open runner-up Matt Selt, AT3 quarter-finalist Alfie Burden, Ryan Day and Liang Wenbo. Of these players, I think that there are 3 players in particular who I see as having the best chance of winning this quarter.
Defending champion Ding Junhui obviously has to have a good chance after he won this tournament in pretty convincing style in what was a purple patch in his career last season between September 2013 and April 2014. However, since this period that saw 5 ranking titles and one other final, he has only won an Asian Tour event and made one full ranking event semi-final in what is an incredibly barren run for a player of his class. Poor performances at both the UK Championships and Masters exposed the poor run of form that he is currently on at the moment, and he is going to need to improve big time to win this event or even get close. A huge test awaits him at the very start of this event when he takes on his bogey player Ryan Day. Ryan beat him at both the 2012 UK Championships and 2013 World Championships, as well as taking him to a semi-final decider in this tournament last year, so Ryan is clearly a player that Ding struggles to overcome. Another player who he badly struggles to beat is Stuart Bingham who has a brilliant recent record against and could be a potential quarter-final opponent if Ding can get that far. You can't rule out a turnaround in fortunes for him in this event, but I think you have to be fair in saying that he's showed no signs of being anywhere close to his best form at any point so far this season.
Matt Selt is a player who has coming on leaps and bounds at the moment and is finally starting to see the rewards for all of the hard work that he has been putting in in recent times. There were signs that it was coming with good results at the start of the season in the European Tour events, before he went and got to the final of the fifth event in Lisbon where he just lost out to Stephen Maguire. The next thing that Matt achieved is smaller in stature but will still provide him with no end of confidence going forward and that is the fact that after a late call to play in the second group of the Championship League at the beginning of January, he managed to win the group beating Judd Trump in the final and several other great players along the way in a star studded group. Selt now poses a great threat to the top 16 players as he can beat most players on his day and I expect him to be in the top 32 by the end of the season and qualifying to play at the Crucible again. As for this week a tough start against Stuart Bingham will make things tough for him, but as I said he can beat anyone on his day and if he does overcome Stuart there is every chance that he could go very far in this event.
Stuart Bingham is in really good form at the moment and he will be a really big handful in this event in my opinion. After winning the Shanghai Masters which was a great victory for Stuart, he's also been performing well again in the Asian Tour events again this season and another UK Championship semi-final has put him nicely into the worlds top 8 this season and someone I look to as a threat to win most events now because he has proved he is a winner, and not just a decent player. Bingham played in all of the first four Championship League groups and as well as getting some very valuable match practice, he showed his consistency and form by making the final in two of those groups and of course, winning the fourth. I think Stuart has to look at his draw, sense a certain opportunity that if he can beat Selt and really get into the tournament, that a deep run is his for the taking, and therefore with the great position that his game seems to be in at the moment, I want to see him take the bull by the horns in this tournament and attack things.
Quarter Winner: Stuart Bingham
Quarter 2
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)Mark Allen Vs Mark Williams
Shaun Murphy Vs Michael Wasley
Joe Perry Vs Jimmy Robertson
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Mark Davis
This quarter is really packed full of players that could easily come along and win this tournament never mind the quarter, and you know that whoever does win it will have received a work out and will be in a great position to kick on. We have UK and Champion of Champions Ronnie O'Sullivan, Masters champion Shaun Murphy, twice ranking finalist this season Mark Allen, recent Asian Tour 3 winner Joe Perry, and two players hovering just outside of the top 16 in Mark Davis and Mark Williams. All of those six that I have listed are huge threats to win this tournament and it's going to be hard to pick a winner from them.
Shaun Murphy completed his triple crown just a couple of weeks ago when he romped to the Masters title at the Alexandra Palace in London, but that is certainly not the end of what Shaun wants to achieve as a player. He's in the prime of his career now, at the optimum age where a lot of players become the complete player and win a lot of their titles and that is no different for Shaun as he has already won two European tour titles this season as well, and he has really started to settle with his life and snooker at the moment. The one obstacle you see for Murphy in the this event is that he has a very tough draw and needs to play great stuff from the start, and he may not yet have gotten his feet back on the ground following one of the biggest wins of his career just a couple of weeks ago, and one that certainly means the world to Shaun.
Ronnie O'Sullivan is always a huge name in the draw for any event, just as he is here in an event he conquered back in 2012. He doesn't seem to be a player that plays badly anymore, but equally he's not always at the very very peak of his game in every match he plays. At the Masters he did get to the semi-finals, but did suffer from a very heavy defeat against Neil Robertson, and despite his work with Dr Steve Peters you can tell from the way that he talks about his game that he's not always happy and that such defeats and performances that aren't near his best cause huge amounts of self-doubt and paranoia in himself regarding his game, as he goes into great detail with in his book (which I've read again very recently). A tough draw awaits the Rocket here in Germany and one where he is going to have problems throughout the tournament however far it is he may progress in the event. His starting match against Mark Davis is a very difficult one because Mark is an incredibly solid player, who reached the UK Championship quarter-finals in December and has played himself into some good form with some incredibly handy match practice at the Championship League, getting the group 3 and 4 finals, before beating the Rocket over the best of 5 frames in the group 5 final to book his place in the Winners group. I expect Mark to push Ronnie all the way in that encounter and it certainly has the look of a match in my mind that could easily go against O'Sullivan despite his winning run that he was on between the start of the Champion of Champions before his eventual defeat in the Masters semi-finals.
Joe Perry is another man whose game has improved massively over the last couple of years and he showed this again incredibly recently as he won the Asian Tour 3 event just over a week ago to book his place in the Players Championship finals and win his Asian Tour event in his career. Coupled with a great win against Ding Junhui to make the Masters quarter-finals, and of course his run to the final of the Wuxi Classic early on in the season we know that Joe is a quality player well capable of winning a full ranking title, and I think he's been quite unfortunate so far not to have won one, and I believe that he certainly provides another huge challenge in this quarter, and a certain contender to go on and possibly even improve on his showing here last season where he lost out in the quarter-finals to Ding Junhui.
Mark Allen is another guy who is in cracking form this season and he has showed possibly one of his most consistent performing seasons in his career so far. He's won one European Tour event, made the final of another, lost out in two ranking event finals in China and started off this year very well by beating John Higgins and Joe Perry to make the Masters semi-finals before being unlucky to run into the steam train that was Shaun Murphy, who I think he has a better chance of beating if the pair meet again in the Last 16 here over the best of 9 frames. First off though, Mark has to see off another Mark in Williams who he had a classic encounter with at the International Championship semi-finals at the start of November, and I'm certainly expecting more of the same when the pair meet this week, and the winner of that one could well go very very far again in this tournament. The one thing I've been comfortably saying with Mark Allen's form in recent months following all of his great performances in the last few months, is that it is all building up to a big title and for me he has to win a ranking event before the end of the season, and the way he's playing this certainly wouldn't be a bad one for him to win and if he can play as he has done at times in the first half of the season, a draw like the one in front of him in this quarter will not faze him one bit.
Quarter Winner: Mark Allen
Quarter 3
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)Neil Robertson Vs Fergal O'Brien
Xiao Guodong Vs Liam Highfield
Stephen Maguire Vs David Gilbert
Barry Hawkins Vs Mark King
As we enter the bottom half of the draw, the third quarter isn't in the same uncallable league as the second quarter but we still have three top quality players, and three others that can cause problems. Masters runner-up Neil Robertson is always a huge threat as will be Lisbon Open champion Stephen Maguire and Barry Hawkins. Xiao Guodong's style always makes him an enormous threat on his day, and David Gilbert seems to have played himself into a decent little bit of form having got some great match practice at the Championship League.
Neil Robertson has taken a break from the day job of snooker this week along with a large number of the pros this week to play in the World 8 ball Pool championships in China, and he has been one of the more successful snooker players in the event as he made the quarter-finals before being beaten by top Pool player Darren Appleton 13-12. Of course Neil started the year in fantastic style to get to the Masters final for the third year in four before losing out to Shaun Murphy in a total thrashing in that final. Neil seemed to be lacking something in that final, but I can't really work out why because he had played fantastically in his three games previously. You have to wonder whether he was lacking in a little bit of energy or concentration, and perhaps his Vegan diet is still taking a bit of getting used to. However, he is consistently getting into the latter stages of anything he enters now and is showing on a regular basis why he is up in the top three players in the world in my opinion and many others. His draw isn't completely horrible for his chances of getting to at least the quarter-finals, and when he gets to that stage of a tournament that is usually when he kicks on and goes a lot further.
Stephen Maguire is another player in great form though at the moment, and even though he lost the Masters quarter-final to Shaun Murphy he was playing some very very good snooker and will also have been pleased to carry that form on from before Christmas where he won the Lisbon Open and narrowly lost out in the UK Championship semi-finals. His confidence is certainly higher at the moment and you'd think that would extend into another big ranking title in 2015 for my money. This week could easily be his week if his attacking style continues to be strong and that will make him tough to play against as Judd Trump found out at the Masters. I don't believe that Maguire has been at the World Pool in China and that I think will help his preparations for this event and could help him on a bigger run this week.
Barry Hawkins is having a mixed time of things this season to be completely honest. The scars from his UK Championship Last 64 defeat from 5-0 up may be hard to see off, and an incredible performance from Ali Carter saw him fail to get past the first round of the Masters again to start the year. However, he did win the first group of the Championship League before the Masters and make a 147, but clearly that hasn't transformed his form yet, and I'm not sure how much good he would've done by going to China for the Pool and having a few thrashings handed to him there, feeling perhaps like he'd wasted his time and one things for sure (even if it is a totally different game) it's not going to do your snooker any good by doing that and he certainly needs to turn that around.
Quarter Winner: Neil Robertson
Quarter 4
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)Judd Trump Vs Michael Holt
Martin Gould Vs Ashley Carty
John Higgins Vs Peter Ebdon
Mark Selby Vs Anthony McGill
The final quarter of the draw is home to world champion Mark Selby, UK and Champion of Champions runner-up Judd Trump, as well as plenty more top quality names in John Higgins, Peter Ebdon, Michael Holt and the heavy ranking climber in Anthony McGill who reached the UK quarter-finals in December, while the other player in this section is the sole amateur in the draw in Ashley Carty.
At the time of writing World Snooker Champion Mark Selby is also trying to become World 8 Ball Pool Champion in China, and is into the semi-finals there after a pretty dismal time on the snooker table since becoming World Champion and having his first child with wife Vikki. So far this season Selby has lost in the first round of the Masters to Shaun Murphy, the Last 64 of the UK Championships to David Morris and the Last 128 qualifying round for the International Championships from 4-0 ahead against Oliver Lines. The particular dip has happened since little Sofia came into his life, but I don't think you could blame his dip in levels on that, though going away to China for the pool this week seems to have done him some good and maybe this time away and some good showings on the smaller table, will extend to some better performances on the snooker table this week in Germany. He faces a tough test in the first round though against Anthony McGill who beat John Higgins amongst others on the way to the UK quarter-finals and has become a very solid player, and a tough player to beat on his day, so Mark will have to be on it here from the first shot.
Peter Ebdon comes into this event as a possible threat to those around him in the draw as he has had two weeks of very nice match practice with 8 days of play at the Championship League at Crondon Park against some pretty good opponents and he looks to be playing pretty well. From those eight days he played some good stuff for six of them, only really struggling to get going on the Monday's of both weeks. That's not my only reason of course for thinking that he will go well this week, there is of course the fact that he has had some very good performances on the European Tour this season making the Last 16 in Lisbon, the semi-finals in Bulgaria and the quarter-finals a while back in Riga. He was unlucky in the UK Championships to run into Neil Robertson in the Last 32 who was certainly inspired that day and beat him 6-2. An Asian Tour 2 quarter-final as well is another high point in what has been a very consistent season and the only thing he has been missing is a strong ranking event run, and a couple of victories this week would certainly see to that. His first round opponent is John Higgins who again isn't in great form at the moment and has been pretty inconsistent over the last 18 months to 2 years, playing fantastically in patches but throwing a lot more mistakes into his game than he'd like, and if he's not on his game 100% against Peter, the vegan is certainly in good enough form to send him packing.
Finally, last years finalist and recent UK and Champion of Champions finalist and Australian Open champion Judd Trump will be one of the favourites both for this quarter and the tournament as a whole. Judd's return to form came around this time last year when he got the final of this event, losing out a machine-like Ding Junhui, but of course he'll be aiming to go one better this time around. He says he's been working a lot harder, but I also think in a similar way to how Shaun Murphy has picked his form up in the last 12 months, Judd had got a little bit too negative at times as a result of putting a lot of hard work into improving his safety game, he'd started to out think himself and take on less of his shots, because when he's on form they'll go in and he can win the frame from them. His finals at York and Coventry at the back end of last year against O'Sullivan showed us just how much character he now has as well to stick in there and not give up and he's looking a lot closer to a complete player, which at a young age leaves him with endless possibilities. In the opening rounds I don't think there is anyone he has to play before the quarter-finals who would frighten him that much as he has beaten Michael Holt his first round opponent and his possible Last 16 opponent Martin Gould plenty of times before. In fact a year ago at this event Michael was beaten 5-0 in very quick time by Judd, and that is exactly what he can do when he's on form and he certainly looks up for it more in the UK and Europe which makes him a lot more threatening. Judd Trump is a perfect example of a man that needs that bit of inspiration from the big crowd, and he will certainly get that at the Tempodrome in what he claims is one of his favourite venues of tour.
Quarter Winner: Judd Trump
Tournament Runner-Up: Judd Trump
Tournament Winner: Mark Allen
As you can see from that the line-up does look incredibly strong and I think the final stages will be particularly strong in this tournament and it is very hard to call the winner from the start but I've tried my best here and I'm sure that we'll be entertained very strongly for five full days here as snooker returns to our TV screens on Eurosport for the first time since the Masters at the beginning of the month. I hope you've all enjoyed my preview, and I will be back later on in the week with frequent updates on the event as I see it.
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