Ali Carter tops the group at present on the pure reason that he won his group match against Stuart Bingham as both have won the same amount of matches, frames and lost the same amount of frames too. Carter and Bingham have each won two of their opening four matches, while Mark Davis and Matt Selt were the other two players I predicted for good starts and they have each won two of their opening three games and will be looking to kick on, as will Ben Woollaston who has done exactly the same yesterday winning two of three. Then we find Xiao Guodong who has played four games and only won one, and had the harsh factor of playing three straight games yesterday which he lost all of in the evening, after the afternoon session overran. Barry Hawkins completes the set with his solitary win from his opening three games and he was the player who had an evening off yesterday (which he used to decide to withdraw from the Indian Open, and join the other 8 top 16 players not entered). Here is exactly how the first day went in terms of results, and of course the table looks at the half way stage, with the penultimate notepad picture of the 2015 Championship League:
What all of this means is that really, starting from the bottom of the table, Xiao Guodong needs to win both of his remaining group games to have any chance of taking a top four spot as i expect the mark will three points to take fourth place as usual. Barry Hawkins has a bit more room for manoeuvre but not much, he needs at least two wins from his remaining three games although it may be a maximum of three wins that is required. Ben Woolllaston, Matt Selt and Mark Davis are all in similar boats that one win will have them in good position for a semi-final spot, but two wins would really secure that berth in the last four. Again, Ali Carter and Stuart Bingham both have less leeway with this one as they have one less game and therefore could really do with winning all of their remaining games to make it into the semi-finals.
Ali Carter's remaining games are against Ben Woollaston while Bingham faces Barry Hawkins and Xiao Guodong, so you have to say that the chances for both are reasonable and anything could happen there. Ben Woollaston faces very tough games against Stuart Bingham, Barry Hawkins and Matt Selt, with that one against Matt being a really key one for both players there as Selt has Xiao Guodong and another key game against Mark Davis who is in the same position as Matt. Marks other two games are against Barry Hawkins and Ali Carter so again that is tough for Mark Davis and the simple matter is that the best four players today will be the four to make the semi-finals, because you can pretty much throw yesterday out of the window, as everything is so even.
When I come back tomorrow it will be to bring you news of who the Championship League Champion is, and I could still make a strong case for six of the seven guys competing, with Xiao Guodong the man that will really be struggling to make the last four. I'm sure it will be nervy towards the end because there is good money and opportunities at stake as the winner should get a place in next seasons Champion of Champions which is an incredibly lucrative event, and currently none of these seven players have yet qualified (in fact Ronnie O'Sullivan, Shaun Murphy and Mark Selby are the only ones guaranteed), so it's sure to be a big day of snooker.
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