Selby survives scare on first day in Berlin

World Champion Mark Selby survived a scare in the first round of the German Masters yesterday as he saw his 4-1 lead against Anthony McGill evaporate, only to come back strong and win the deciding frame. Meanwhile, in the evening session, Neil Robertson and Judd Trump were comfortably through with whitewashes, while Stephen Maguire survived a David Gilbert fight back as Dave reduced a 4-0 deficit to 4-3 before the Scot closed the match. Two top 16 players did meet their end on day one however as John Higgins was comfortably beaten by an in-form Peter Ebdon and Mark King beat Barry Hawkins 5-3 in a lengthy encounter. Amateur Ashley Carty gave Martin Gould a good push and was level at 3-3 at one stage before Martin's class showed and he closed the match out 5-3. Finally, Xiao Guodong came back from the brink on two occasions trailing 4-3 and 47-0 in the eighth frame, and then trailing 50-0 in the decider against Liam Highfield before coming back to win that match 5-4.

Here's quick confirmation of yesterdays results in full:

Wednesday's Last 32 Results:

Neil Robertson 5-0 Fergal O'Brien
Xiao Guodong 5-4 Liam Highfield
Stephen Maguire 5-3 David Gilbert
Mark King 5-3 Barry Hawkins
Judd Trump 5-0 Michael Holt
Martin Gould 5-3 Ashley Carty
Peter Ebdon 5-2 John Higgins
Mark Selby 5-4 Anthony McGill

Today's play sees the final eight games of the Last 32 in this morning and afternoons sessions, while the evening session sees the four Last 16 matches that were created from yesterdays results in the bottom half of the draw, so I'm going to have a quick look ahead to those four matches now.

Thursday's Last 16 Preview: (Picks in Bold)

Neil Robertson Vs Xiao Guodong - Neil Robertson seems to have played reasonably well against Fergal O'Brien yesterday, really just doing what he had to without being pushed particularly hard in the match. However, he has been playing well in the lead up to this tournament after reaching the Masters final and he'll take comfort from that and his victory last night. Xiao Guodong meanwhile, was pushed all the way by Liam Highfield and he did have to dig incredibly deep to win that match when he seemed pretty much destined to lose it for a large part of the game. That will give him confidence after a pretty quiet season so far on the tour, and a big result in this match to get into the quarter-finals could really kick start his season. However, Neil is the experienced man here and if things get tough I expect him to be able to grind out the result, and possibly begin to frustrate the young Chinaman.

Stephen Maguire Vs Mark King - Before I look at the current form of either player for this match, I'd like to point out one result I remember from the German Masters Last 32 in 2013 when Mark King whitewashed Stephen Maguire 5-0. Could the same thing happen here? Well a Mark King victory is never out of the question, especially when he's cueing well which it appears he was in his win over Hawkins last night. Although, Stephen Maguire is a much different prospect to Barry Hawkins here for Mark. Stephen is playing very well right now and seems to have his confidence back, which Barry really doesn't have right now. With Maguire playing pretty close to his best right now, I don't think there will be a repeat of two years previous.

Judd Trump Vs Martin Gould - Judd Trump didn't start his match off against Michael Holt brilliantly last night and he didn't play sparkling snooker in the first three frames, but Holty didn't put him under any pressure in the end and it was all very comfortable for Judd, who was then able to relax and play his best snooker at the end of the match with back to back centuries. He'll need a better start today though, otherwise Martin Gould is a much more likely candidate to hand out some punishment and make him pay for his misses. The one down side for Martin is that he doesn't seem to be on top form, and really had to grind out his win yesterday against Ashley, something he won't be able to do against Trump. Martin has also been unwell in the lead up to this event, which won't have helped his preparation, and if he's still feeling a little bit under the weather he could become pretty jaded if the match runs close, though personally I don't think it will go that far.

Mark Selby Vs Peter Ebdon - Finally, we have what looks to be the best tie of the four by some distance and one I'm really looking forward to here between two great players playing pretty well right now. Mark has of course been struggling this season, and hasn't been able to pick up the results he would like as World Champion and he has admitted that there's been a lot of pressure on him with the World Champion tag coming into every tournament, which reminds me a lot of when he was World number one for the first time and was struggling a little with his game, because the title of world number one was proving a lot of pressure for him to handle. Meanwhile, there's really no pressure on Mark's opponents, because they always know that all eyes are on Mark as world champion to perform, so if he comes up against someone in good form he's more than likely to end up in a very tough, close game and possibly be beaten. That is exactly what I see happening here with Peter. The former world champion is playing some really good stuff at the moment and he scored heavily yesterday against John Higgins, so a repeat of that form could see a repeat of that result. Meanwhile, things were not comfortable for Mark who looked more and more tired as the match went on against Anthony, and it was a long one as McGill came back and Mark started to make a few errors. The problem for Mark will be if he's still feeling the effects of jetlag having only recently travelled back from China and the Pool championships over there, because it can take a few days to get over. I fancy that if Peter can stick with Selby in the first part of the match, and draw it out a bit in the back half of the match, he'll be able to take it, but it will be a close one.


That's all from me then after a very enjoyable first day of the German Masters, with some much more enjoyable coverage by Eurosport with Colin Murray presenting coverage, with Neal Foulds, Jimmy White and Ronnie O'Sullivan in their studio area in the Tempodrome providing analysis. I'll be back tomorrow morning to look ahead to the remaining Last 16 games for Friday afternoon, and the two known quarter-finals for Friday evening.