Selby, Trump and Robertson fall at Last 16 stage

Mark Selby, Judd Trump and Neil Robertson all fell to lower ranked opposition at the Last 16 stage of the Welsh Open, meaning that no-one out of the top 7 ranked players in the world coming into this event, has made it into the quarter-finals. The day started off with Mark Selby seemingly taking control of his match against Luca Brecel as an early century helped him into a 2-0 advantage before he was pegged back to 2-2. Mark responded again though with his second century, while Luca then made a century of his own and then took control of the decider and snatched an unlikely 4-3 victory. Judd Trump was next up against home favourite Mark Williams and Judd didn't show up really as Williams cruised to a simple 4-1 win, which could've been even better if Mark would've been successful in doubling the final black in frame four. The evening kicked off with the only other Welsh hope being dashed as Marco Fu came back from 2-1 down once again to make two centuries and beat Matthew Stevens 4-2. Finally, the evening saw a slightly bizarre match between Neil Robertson and Gary Wilson. Gary took the first frame but Neil then took more control of the match as he went into a 2-1 lead. An 81 in the fourth from Wilson squared the match at 2-2 before Neil Robertson proceeded to lose the fifth frame of the match on the three misses rule, whereby he could see a red full ball, but failed to hit anything on three consecutive occasions. That frazzled Robertson and fired up Wilson who made another good break in the to secure the best win of his life beating Neil Robertson 4-2.

On the non-televised tables, John Higgins saw off the charge of Michael Georgiou with a 4-2 victory, while Ben Woollaston continued his fine form with consecutive centuries in the middle of his 4-2 win over Ali Carter. In the evening, Stephen Maguire whitewashed Alan McManus to win the all Scottish Last 16 tie, and set up an all Scottish quarter-final with John Higgins. Finally, International champion Ricky Walden overcame Shanghai Master Stuart Bingham to set up a quarter-final with the young Belgium who started the days drama.

Last 16 Results:

Marco Fu 4-2 Matthew Stevens
Mark Williams 4-1 Judd Trump
Ben Woollaston 4-2 Ali Carter
Gary Wilson 4-2 Neil Robertson
John Higgins 4-2 Michael Georgiou
Stephen Maguire 4-0 Alan McManus
Ricky Walden 4-2 Stuart Bingham
Luca Brecel 4-3 Mark Selby

Quarter-Final Preview: (Picks in Bold)

Marco Fu Vs Mark Williams - Once again, the final Welsh hopes rest on the shoulders of Mark Williams, and his quarter-final opponent is the man who killed the Welsh hopes of Matthew Stevens and finished off the Welsh hopes last season in this event beating Williams in the Last 16. In fact, Marco Fu's recent record against Mark Williams has seen the man from Hong Kong beat him several times within the last two or three years and when he's playing well he's pretty tough for any man to beat. The way Marco has actually played this week has been pretty mixed. He's started a number of matches off slow, falling 2-1 behind in all of his last three matches before coming back to win 4-2. Over the longer best-of-9 frames format with an interval after four frames, that will allow Marco to gather himself if he makes a similarly poor start today against Williams, but once he's fallen behind he has played a lot better and scored very well so he proves a very very tough opponent, especially if you make a poor start yourself. Mark Williams form has also been very patchy at times this week and despite getting into the quarter-finals he has only been playing well for parts of matches throughout the week and struggling badly at other times. If he doesn't make a good start today he could easily be blown away by Marco, so the pressure is going to be heaped upon him even more than in his other matches right from the very start. When Marco gets to these stages of events, he very often kicks into gear, because he simply doesn't get to these stages often enough and has to make the most of it when he does and that is the reason why I think he'll edge this contest.

Ben Woollaston Vs Gary Wilson - Ben Woollaston has been playing very good snooker throughout this week, and has already beaten two top players this week, so being in the quarter-finals this week will not faze him at all. His breaks against Mark Allen demonstrated how well he was cueing, but I wasn't sure he'd carry it on against Carter, but consecutive centuries in the middle of the match really put him in control and he'll be very pleased overall how his game is, and it seems that the Championship League has helped to boost his confidence. Gary Wilson will very much be on cloud nine after comfortably the biggest win of his professional career yesterday, but he needs to come down quickly and prepare for this match otherwise Ben will blow him away. Gary had had a very poor season prior to this tournament and I was starting to wonder what had happened to his form. Woollaston just has a little bit of extra experience in the latter stages of these events, and with the confidence in his game to know that he's playing well, he must be sensing an opportunity to go even further this week and that is why I think he'll win this match.

Stephen Maguire Vs John Higgins - This all Scottish quarter-final could be set-up to go all the way with both players playing very well this week. John has been cueing fairly well, and continuing to knock in the breaks, but that hasn't been his problem over the last few months. The problem has been his consistency through a match, and that won't help his confidence too much, though he knows a lot about Maguire so will be hoping he can get the victory. Stephen however, has won all of the meetings between the pair since August 2011 and that is a record that's seen him win a large number of games, and in the final stages of big tournaments too. Maguire is also in very good form making the latter stages of all of the recent events, including this one now of course and he has his confidence back in full and is scoring very heavily once again. Stephen also won this event two years ago, and because of the two year ranking system, he'll be determined to kick on now and fully defend his ranking money from this. It's going to be close, but the closer it gets the more I fancy Stephen to just come through.

Ricky Walden Vs Luca Brecel - Luca Brecel has had a very good week so far, losing only one frame in his first three matches, including a victory over Robert Milkins, before he played very well in seeing off world champion Mark Selby. Luca says he has his motivation back and says he was struggling to motivate himself to keep coming over to the UK and playing in the qualifiers. A lot of his turnaround in the last few weeks could well be down to his decision to get back with coach Chris Henry and he also says that with this he has been working heavily on the mental side of the game to get the confidence and belief that he can beat the best players once again. This is what he had when he made the quarter-finals of the 2012 UK Championships, and who did he beat in the Last 32 that year? His opponent today Ricky Walden. Luca will certainly have the belief that he can win, but when Walden is on form he is an incredibly tough player to beat. It seems that Ricky has found his rhythm this week, and he is one of the biggest examples in snooker of a player that relies on good rhythm to play well, and when he has that he'll score well, has a very competent safety game and generally looks confident too. It would be easy to predict another Luca upset against Walden, because Ricky can be quite inconsistent, but he's also very fresh coming into this week and will be determined to win a ranking title in the UK having won all of his three ranking tournaments in China. I think more than anything both players will be reliant on a good start, and if both get that it will go close, but I fancy that Ricky is in the better form to win, and has a lot more experience at this stage of major tournaments.


Now that the quarter-finals are up to the best-of-9 frames with mid-session intervals we've finally got some proper matches to look forward to and with many of the top players beaten this week so far, and the remaining top players very evenly matched it's so difficult to try and pick a tournament winner from here, but I'm sure the longer format matches for the final three rounds will ensure that the best man wins at the end of the week.