Gilbert and Higgins to contest International Finale

David Gilbert and John Higgins will play out tomorrow's International Championship final, after winning their respective semi-finals on Friday and Saturday. First up on Friday David Gilbert took on Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in what always looked like being a really close match. Early on they went blow for a blow in what was understandably a bit of a nervy start. The highlight of the opening few frames was the break of 78 in frame number six from Un-Nooh to level the match at 3-3. A tight seventh frame went to Gilbert, and he followed that with an 83 to take an end of session 5-3 as he looked to b building into the match with some confidence. Both players had their chances in the first frame of the second session, but a nice clearance from Gilbert to steal the frame on the black looked like the big turning point as he went into a big 6-3 lead. Again David grew in confidence from that moment and a fantastic break of 112 in the tenth made it 7-3 and that soon became 8-3 as the "Angry Farmer" was just one frame away from his first ever ranking final. Un-Nooh's break of 57 ensured a second session interval at 4-8 and he started to pile some pressure on to David by winning a tight thirteenth, and you did start to wonder whether Dave was having trouble getting over the winning line. The next frame went close as well but with some good pots, particularly on the green at full stretch with extensions on the cue, Gilbert sealed the match and got the 9-5 victory.

Next up today was John Higgins as he took on Mark Selby. Again you expected this to be a close match on paper, but it wasn't to turn out that way thanks to all of John's brilliance. The match started poorly for Selby as he only potted two balls in the first three frames, breaks of 56 and 101 on the way to taking a 3-0 lead for John. A run of 52 got Selby on the board going into the mid-session break, but after the interval the Scot was firing once again. 87 and a 58 clearance from Higgins putting him into a commanding position guaranteed a two frame lead at 5-1 and two frames of the session left. We all know that Selby never goes quietly and he managed to get those last two frames of the afternoon to limit Higgins to a 5-3 end of session lead and keep his hopes alive. They weren't alive for very long when John stormed the first three frames of the second session to move 8-3 in front just as Gilbert had done a day earlier. Yet again, Selby wasn't going to go without a battle, making a tidy 79 to ensure the mid-session break at 4-8. The world number one did have an early chance in the thirteenth frame but once he couldn't make the most of that, John punished him and eventually put the match beyond all doubt by wrapping up a convincing 9-4 win.

Final Preview:

John Higgins Vs David Gilbert - Looking ahead to this weeks final chapter, and the first thing that must be said is that John Higgins will be a massive favourite to win this. David Gilbert has no experience of playing in these big finals while Higgins has more than most players ever to have played the game. That doesn't necessarily make things any easier as you would still naturally expect him to feel the nerves like any player. I want to start by talking about David Gilbert and his achievements of the week as well as the opportunity that he has if he can win tomorrow. The potential is massive for Gilbert, a place in the World Grand Prix is already in the bag thanks to a guaranteed £65,000 won in this event which is obviously the biggest pay day of his career. He is also already up to a provisional high of 21st, with the possibility of rising even further to 14th if he should beat Higgins. That would not only see him seeded into the top 16 for the UK Championships, but as there are also very few events left before the cut-off, it would more than likely see him into January's Masters which would be another huge achievement. Not to mention also taking the final spot in the Champion of Champions and having a very good chance to get himself seeded through to the Crucible in the top 16 and not having to go through the 3 qualifying rounds. His victories this week have been impressive, as he's hardly had easy opponents to reach the final. He played Xiao Guodong in round one and had to come through a decider to win there. His Last 32 match against Oliver Lines was the only match in this event that he's actually been favourite to win with the bookmakers, coming back from 4-3 down to win 6-4. Next up was Ryan Day and a 6-4 victory was once again very hard earned. Marco Fu was in very good form when he was Gilbert's next opponent in the quarter-finals. The match went to a decider, and a high pressured 37 clearance gave Dave the win on the final black, and obviously to get into the final he beat Un-Nooh who had also played some stunning snooker this week, winning by a convincing margin. What David has done so well this week is score heavily and look fluent when in amongst the balls. We all know that Gilbert is a heavy scorer but his recent run to the semi-finals of the Ruhr Open looks to have given him some valuable confidence. He once said he had the worst attitude in snooker and never came across as a man with much belief in his endless potential. Now though his confidence is building and no longer is he going to carry tags like the best player from down in the 30's and 40's of the rankings. His run in the 2012 World Championships was when I really wanted him to kick forwards but he has had to wait quite a while since then for the huge opportunity that presents itself tomorrow. I just hope for his sake that he has used his day off to come to terms with his achievement and now prepare fully to give it his very best shot tomorrow.

As for John Higgins, he comes into the final as a massive favourite and that with itself brings it's own pressures of expectation. The Scot is very experienced though and he will take nothing for granted knowing the threats that Gilbert presents. On the other hand, Higgins has looked unstoppable all week. The 6-0 win against one of my favourites to win the title this week in Shaun Murphy made me sit up and think that we were looking at the winner this week. He was superb from start to finish, and he was once again when he took on Selby in the semi-finals who was another of my favourites for this weeks title. He really looked like John Higgins at his very best and absolutely played his opponents into the ground with heavy scoring and key clearances at big moments in the match. There's very little his opponents have been able to do. Even against Michael Holt at 3-1 down he rattled off five frames in a row including two centuries to extinguish any threats to his challenge this week. After winning the Welsh Open and Australian Open already this year, John is beginning to look hungry again and the poor inconsistencies that had crept into his game appear to have been banished. My worry for Gilbert is that if he gets anywhere near the winning line he may start to falter and we know that Higgins will not, but that is a big if in itself.

Final Prediction: Higgins to put in a complete performance and win 10-5.


It really has been another thoroughly enjoyable week of snooker and my personal highlight has been seeing the likes of David Gilbert and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh rise through the pack to display their potential to the world once again. Coming up next after tomorrow's final is the Bulgarian Open which starts only a few days from now on Friday, and then straight after that the Champion of Champions event in Coventry follows so plenty more quality snooker to come and plenty more contributions on here from me.

Thepchaiya, Gilbert, Selby and Higgins are final quartet at the International

Thephchaiya Un-Nooh, David Gilbert, Mark Selby and John Higgins are the final four at the International Championships in Daqing after winning their quarter-final matches today. The Thai Un-Nooh was the first man through today when he overcame Mark Allen by winning his fourth decider out of four this week and fifth of the event in total, meaning every match he has played has gone to a eleventh and final frame. The Thai wasn't quite as his big scoring best today and both players were offered up plenty of chances in the match, when a break of 66 put Un-Nooh 4-2 ahead you thought it might end up being his day. That was until Allen won a key eighth frame that you thought might be key when he levelled the match at 4-4. Thepchaiya hit back straight away with a run of 99 to lead 5-4, but a 118 from Allen forced yet another decider for Thepchaiya this week. Once again he dominated that decider and now marches on into his second full ranking event semi-final of 2015, but certainly the biggest match of his career.

His opponent will be David Gilbert, who himself came through a deciding frame by seeing off Marco Fu. It was Marco that had the best running in the early stages, taking a 3-1 mid-session advantage with runs of 66 and 72 helping him on his way. Gilbert hit back after the interval with 74 to peg him back to 2-3, but Fu went two in front again thanks to an 89. A mammoth eighth frame looked key though as in the other quarter-final of the first session, as Gilbert took it to draw level at 4-4. He kicked on from there with a massive break of 130 to go 5-4 up, but a run of 78 from Fu made sure there was one last frame. Marco did have a run of 57 but it wasn't enough to get him over the line, and a 37 clearance from Gilbert (arguably the biggest of his career) gave him the match and now a massive opportunity in the last four.

Meanwhile in the second session of the day, Mark Selby took on Neil Robertson in what looked like being a great clash, and it didn't disappoint either. Selby started the match by laying out his intentions with a 100 break. The match was level at 2-2 at the interval and looked like going to the wire. However, Selby started to take control as runs of 52 and 75 put him 4-2 ahead. Two tight tactical frames followed, but the clearance Selby made in frame eight was the big one to put him 5-3 ahead. Neil waded in with a brilliant 127 to keep himself in the match but Selby then dominated the tenth frame to put the match to bed and march into the semi-finals.

Selby will now play John Higgins who coming into his match with Joe Perry off the back of a whitewash against Shaun Murphy and a 5 frames in a row from 3-1 down to beat Michael Holt. John then raced into a 4-0 mid-session interval with a 106 break on the way to make it 15 frames in a row at that stage. Twitter the erupted and that clearly cursed John as he lost the next two frames to go 2-4. A break of 69 steadied the ship for Higgins to lead 5-2 but again Perry came back and it came down to a battle on the pink at 3-5 and John potted an amazing pink and followed with the black to win 6-3.

Quarter-Final Results:

Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 6-5 Mark Allen
David Gilbert 6-5 Marco Fu
Mark Selby 6-4 Neil Robertson
John Higgins 6-3 Joe Perry

Semi-Finals Preview:

Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Vs David Gilbert - The first semi-final over the best-of-17 frames tomorrow is going to be an amazing contest between two of the better players from down the rankings and they are both very good to watch. This is a massive opportunity for both players for a number of reasons. If the winner of the match then went on to win the final too, they would get into the top 16 for the first time and have a great chance of putting themselves in the Masters with only a few events to go before the seedings cut off for that event. They would also put themselves into the Champion of Champions in mid-November. Both players should make it into the World Grand Prix now, with minimum prize money of £30,000 for the loser of this semi-final. Both players have done it the hard way to get to this stage after their four games at the venue this week. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh has come through four deciders against Ross Muir, Mark Williams, Zhou Yuelong and Mark Allen but also scoring brilliantly at the same time. David Gilbert has come through two deciders of his own against Xiao Guodong and Marco Fu, while his 6-4 wins against Oli Lines and Ryan Day were far from simple. Both of these guys have been fantastic this week and scoring magnificently and finally starting to show off the class that I knew was hiding in their somehow but we've really only seen glimpses of this until recently. Thepchaiya won the 6 Reds in September, but in terms of ranking performances he also made the Indian Open semi-finals losing out from a winning position against Ricky Walden. David Gilbert also had his chances in the recent Ruhr Open European Tour event where he made the semi-finals and lost narrowly also to Tian Pengfei. So, both players have had a taste of this before but with so much money at stake you have to wonder how they will cope in the biggest match of their lives. Trying to pick a winner is going to be tough, especially as Un-Nooh has been quite streaky, while Gilbert to me has been more solid and has the stronger safety game of the two.

Prediction: Tight 9-8 win for David Gilbert

Mark Selby Vs John Higgins - Saturday's semi-final between Mark Selby and John Higgins is set up brilliantly after all of the classic encounters the two have had down the years. Both are brilliantly tactical players and are on top form this week so this is another very tough call. With no dis-respect to either Gilbert or Un-Nooh but somewhere in the back of their minds they must be thinking that if they can get through this, they have a magnificent chance of winning the title. John has been on excellent form this week dispatching of Murphy on the way and at one stage he had won 15 frames on the spin. If he can keep that up he's going to take some stopping but if one man can, it is Mark Selby. I expect this to be a highly tactical affair, just because of how tough it is to break either player down in the safety department. Mark has been grinding his opponents down very well, and even though Neil Robertson had been scoring well all week, he didn't have the same open chances to go after against Selby and the same might be the case for Higgins who has been scoring with ease all week, and that is most likely a product of the two ranking events he has already won in 2015. If Selby can take his chances and keep his safety tight then he has a chance of taming the beast that John has been so far in Daqing, and at the same time he will just remind everyone why he is the best player in the world right now and enhance that world number 1 ranking.

Prediction: Another close game, and a 9-7 victory for Selby.


I think these are going to be two fantastic semi-finals for two really different. With Un-Nooh and Gilbert tomorrow we have a massive opportunity for both players and one will reach a full ranking final for the first time and have an opportunity to win the £125,000 top prize. Meanwhile, Mark Selby and John Higgins are hugely experienced and have been here many times before, and they are two of the hardest match players in the game. I'll be back on Saturday with a preview of the final of the International Championships and I've got a feeling there will be two very closely fought semi-finals to report on.

Higgins and Robertson shine in Last 16 of International Championship

John Higgins and Neil Robertson were the stars of the last 16 action at the International Championship in Daqing after they both blazed into tomorrow's quarter-finals. Starting with John Higgins, he was simply sublime against Masters Champion Shaun Murphy. There was little Murphy could do and he really only had two half reasonable half chances in the match as he was soundly beaten 6-0. Breaks of 56, 62, 74, 78 and 138 highlighted the Scot's title credentials. Higgins will now play Joe Perry in the quarter-finals after he saw off Ben Woollaston, who was unable to keep his deciding frame winning run going this week.

Neil Robertson was another one of the stars as he won a repeat of the 2010 World Championship final beating Graeme Dott 6-1. Graeme had his chances in this one but overall the Australian was far too strong on the day, contributing with 56, 67, 73 and 75. Next up for Neil is what could be one of the matches of the season against world number 1 Mark Selby. Selby was a 6-3 winner today against Michael White. White was miles away from his best game, and Selby was at his clinical best for the most part, feeding off of his opponents errors and sticking the knife into his back. Runs of 53, 59, 62 and 83 were key in him truly punishing the Welshman and booking his quarter-final place.

Mark Allen is still going strong out in Daqing aiming to go one better than at last years International where he was runner-up to Walden. It was comfortable today for him against Tian Pengfei as he was a 6-1 winner with contributions of 52, 81 and 100 but his place in the last eight was never at any risk. Next up for Mark is the decider king of the week Thepchaiya Un-Nooh who overcame Zhou Yuelong 6-5. Yet again Un-Nooh started slow and was 3-1 down at the interval, but a break of 103 had him back in touching distance at 3-2. A 115 from Zhou pulled clear again at 4-2, but breaks of 58 and 55 pulled the Thai level at 4-4. He then went ahead at 5-4 before a 64 levelled the match again, but it was Un-Nooh who would eventually prevail.

Finally, David Gilbert ran out a 6-4 winner against Ryan Day to match his run to the semi-finals of the Ruhr Open with a quarter-final in Daqing. That came despite breaks of 112 and 93 on the way from Day, but 69, 68, 58 and 50 from David were enough to see him over the line. He will now play Marco Fu after the Hong Kong cueist overcame Jimmy Robertson 6-3. Breaks of 100, 105 and 106 as well as a further 84 and 53, highlighted the dangers that Marco will now present to anyone who meets him in the rest of this weeks tournament.

Last 16 Results:

Mark Allen 6-1 Tian Pengfei
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 6-5 Zhou Yuelong
Marco Fu 6-3 Jimmy Robertson
David Gilbert 6-4 Ryan Day
Mark Selby 6-3 Michael White
Neil Robertson 6-1 Graeme Dott
John Higgins 6-0 Shaun Murphy
Joe Perry 6-5 Ben Woollaston

What's left tomorrow is a two table situation for the four best-of-11 quarter-finals, all of which will be televised on either table one or two, with Allen/Un-Nooh in the first session and Selby/Robertson in the second session being the two feature games on Eurosport. These are my thoughts on all four of tomorrow's games:

Quarter-Final Preview (Picks in Bold)

Mark Allen Vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh - I expect this quarter-final at the top of the draw to be played in a similar way to the way all of Thepchaiya's matches seem to have been played this week so far and that is in a very open attacking style. Having come through 3 deciders this week already you have to ask how much the Thai has left in him, but I don't think it will have taken all that much out of him to be honest. It is not often that you get to watch Un-Nooh so i'm looking forward to watching this and seeing some more of the Thai's effortless break building. This style really is working for him now as he develops a greater level of consistency that really makes him a constant danger in the draw. Mark Allen has gone along nicely so far this week with wins against Swail, Kyren Wilson and Tian Pengfei but this will be another test entirely against the heavy scoring Thai who has been playing a lot of one visit snooker this week. The key thing is that Thepchaiya can continue to relax even though he's now so far into the tournament as he'll still be considered an outsider, but at the end of the day you wouldn't be able to tell from his demeanour in most cases that I've seen him when he's under pressure and not. My view is that he has a great chance to keep his progress going.

Marco Fu Vs David Gilbert - This will be another cracking clash based on how the two guys have been playing this week. Marco hit three centuries today against Jimmy Robertson and really looks to have hit form this week, with comfortable wins against potentially tough opponents and David can certainly be classed as another one of those. David has also had some very nice wins and been put under pressure aplenty coming through tight clashes with Guodong, Oli Lines and Day. Gilbert is in great form at the moment and full of confidence so Marco certainly won't have things all his own way. With both players playing well though, it is always difficult to find that decisive factor which will be the difference between winning and losing. Unfortunately for Gilbert it may just be that big match experience of getting over the line at the back end of tournaments that Marco has so much more of than him.

Mark Selby Vs Neil Robertson - This could be one of the matches of the season so far potentially. Selby went through a phase of seemingly playing each other all the time two or three years ago, but it does not feel like they have met that much lately so this really helps the anticipation for us fans. Starting with Robertson, he may have had a poor season to this point but you can almost put that out of the window given how well he's started this week. No one has really been able to get close to him and give him a real challenge, but you have to expect Mark to do a better job of making the Australian feel the heat. Selby has also showed good form this week, scoring fairly well and in the main part he has also punished his opponents errors really well and making sure they suffer as he always does at his best. What Selby does is not necessarily knock in century after century but you still know when he's close to his best game and you can see that at the moment. His record in China alone makes him one of the big favourites to win not only this match but go on and win the title. In my view, there's nothing to suggest he can't get past Robertson and go all the way if he can tie him down early on in the match with his usual sublime safety play.

Joe Perry Vs John Higgins - The final match of the quarter-final between Joe Perry and John Higgins could be one of the most one sided ones if Higgins plays anywhere like what he showed today against Shaun Murphy. Joe hasn't had the easiest route playing Dominic Dale in the Last 32 and that match was much closer than the 6-3 scoreline, while today was very closely fought with Ben Woollaston eventually coming through the decider and I don't think Joe is quite at his very best this week. Higgins meanwhile has won 11 frames in row after being 3-1 down against Michael Holt to win 6-3 there and of course whitewash Murphy today. Higgins really has come back into a lot more form in 2015 winning two ranking event titles and there's nothing stopping him from getting his third of the year in Daqing this week with the way he is striking the cue ball. Higgins will be a strong favourite if he can transfer his play of the last two rounds into this one, as there was nothing anyone could've done if they were in the same shoes as Shaun and Holt this week.


I'm really looking forward to watching all of these games tomorrow in what is possibly the hardest round of the competition to lose, given that the best-of-17 frame semi-finals and the one table set-up awaits if you can get over the line. It's going to be thrilling to see who makes it through in four very tough tests.

Ding, Hawkins and Williams the next to fall in Daqing

Ding Junhui, Barry Hawkins and Mark Williams were the next big name players to fall at the Last 32 stages of the International Championships in Daqing. Ding Junhui was undone as predicted on the blog last night by Ryan Day and as always it was a fantastic battle between the pair, and this time it was the Welshman that got the upper hand in the decider, avenging their Shanghai Masters meeting in September. Barry Hawkins meanwhile was beaten by Jimmy Robertson who has reached the Last 16 of a full ranking event for the first time, and is really starting to show his talent on the tour a lot more. Mark Williams will be very disappointed to lose against Thepchaiya Un-Nooh having led 3-1, 4-2 and 55-0 at 5-4 really only needing one more chance to clinch the match at that stage.

However, Neil Robertson had things fairly comfortable against Fergal O'Brien to set up a Last 16 tie with another very tough competitor in Graeme Dott who won his match with Peter Ebdon. Shaun Murphy looked very good in his win against Jamie Jones, and he'll now play John Higgins who made two centuries and won five frames in a row against Michael Holt from 3-1 down. Mark Selby also shone on day 3, finishing off with a century in a 6-1 thrashing of Anthony McGill, and his Last 16 opponent is Michael White who beat fellow Welshman Lee Walker. Zhou Yuelong was perhaps the most impressive player on the day in his 6-0 win over Sanderson Lam and there was little Lam could do. Tian Pengfei is another Chinese player in the Last 16, winning his all Chinese clash against Liang Wenbo and his next opponent is Mark Allen who avenged his 6-1 Shanghai Masters semi-final defeat to Kyren Wilson. David Gilbert also kept his form going by winning all of the last three frames in a 6-4 win against Oliver Lines. Ben Woollaston came through his second decider of the week to beat Stuart Bingham's conqueror Yu De Lu, and he completes the Last 16 draw with Joe Perry, who saw off Dominic Dale 6-3.

Last 32 Results:

Tian Pengfei 6-3 Liang Wenbo
Mark Allen 6-3 Kyren Wilson
Zhou Yuelong 6-0 Sanderson Lam
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 6-5 Mark Williams
Jimmy Robertson 6-4 Barry Hawkins
Marco Fu 6-3 Jack Lisowski
David Gilbert 6-4 Oliver Lines
Ryan Day 6-5 Ding Junhui
Mark Selby 6-1 Anthony McGill
Michael White 6-3 Lee Walker
Graeme Dott 6-3 Peter Ebdon
Neil Robertson 6-3 Fergal O'Brien
Shaun Murphy 6-2 Jamie Jones
John Higgins 6-3 Michael Holt
Joe Perry 6-3 Dominic Dale
Ben Woollaston 6-5 Yu De Lu


We now have a fantastic line-up for the Last 16 of the International Championship and we are now of course down to four tables being on the go in a single session which means we're starting to get to the business end where the cream of the week will rise to the top. Here are my thoughts on the potential contents of that cream:

Last 16 Preview (Picks in Bold)

Mark Allen Vs Tian Pengfei - The top match in the draw will be a good one as Tian Pengfei looks to keep his very good form of late going. His win against Liang Wenbo was one that I fully expected and predicted on here yesterday, after his run to the final of the Ruhr Open and his victories already this week. Tian has had great potential and showed glimpses for a while, but with these recent results he's started to climb the rankings and will be full of confidence ready to play Allen tomorrow and will certainly not fear him. Mark however has gone along pretty well and is warming to another Chinese challenge. He seems to enjoy playing here based on his results, with a semi-final at this years Shanghai Masters, finals in both the Shanghai and International last year and of course his back to back ranking titles at the World Open on the Hainan Island. Allen's well overdue a top run and if he's on top form again tomorrow, Tian will be under a lot of pressure if he's to keep his run going, and while I expect this to be close, my pick if for Mark to edge it.

Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Vs Zhou Yuelong - This match is one of the best in the draw between two very heavy scoring, attacking players who I think will be trading in heavy blows here. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh has already expended a lot of energy to get to this stage coming through two deciders in his matches, while Zhou Yuelong so far has only dropped a couple of frames and been scoring incredibly heavily. Both of these guys will be confident after some of the results they have had this year. Un-Nooh won the 6 Reds and made the quarter-finals of last weeks Asian tour event, while Zhou won the world cup with Yan Bingtao in June and had a decent run himself a week ago in the Haining Open. Again this is a very close one to call but the way Zhou has been scoring this week you still fancy him to take his chances and with the confidence of youth he's going to take some stopping, so he is my tip to edge this close contest.

Marco Fu Vs Jimmy Robertson - This is a repeat of the first round of this years World Championship, and the only reason I mention this is because I was there at the Crucible for both sessions watching the guys go head to head up close and personal. On that day Marco was just a little too good for him at the back end of the match but that was over a very long format and I expect Jimmy to stay with him over the best-of-11 frames. Robertson has had some great results recently, not only to get to the Crucible in April, but he made the semi-finals at last weeks Haining Open and the semi-finals of February's Gdynia Open also and perhaps he's started to mature a lot more as a player and show off more of his overall potential. Having said all of that, you never get an easy game against Fu and i'm sure that will be the case again tomorrow. Marco so far this week has looked very good in beating Matthew Stevens and Jack Lisowski, both of which could've been made a lot closer if Marco was not on his game so this all bodes well for his overall chances this week. He came into the week with a lot of money to defend having been the runner-up at the International two years ago, and with this possibly on his mind and the fact that he has been in poor form, this may be the carrot that needed to be dangled. Fu is my pick to book his place in the quarters.

Ryan Day Vs David Gilbert - Again this is another big opportunity for two players outside of the present top 16 to progress into this weeks quarter-finals as the draw has been opened up for them. Of course, Day did the bulk of that work by knocking out Ding Junhui today and that's a great win for him against someone who he always comes close to and takes the game to really well. If he can keep that up against everyone else this week there's no reason why he can't keep on climbing and have one of his best weeks for some time. David won't be a pushover for him though as he's also in great form at the moment. Gilbert is one of my favourite players to watch but he does not produce the snooker we know he's capable of very often. His run to the semi-finals of the Ruhr Open was so close to being even better and that will spur him on for the future. At the end of the day, I believe that Day just has a little bit more of the cutting edge that's going to be important at the back end of this match.

Mark Selby Vs Michael White - As we move into the bottom half, it's time to have a look at the world number 1 and my tournament tip for the week Mark Selby. Selby was in impressive form against McGill today and I truly believe that with all of his experience that he loves playing in China, so he's still a great shout to win the whole event with the form he's shown. Michael White hasn't quite showed the same form this week or in recent events, and his struggles against much weaker opposition than Selby in Daqing so far do not present a pretty picture for his chances tomorrow against Mark. Personally, I think if Selby continues to score well, he's more likely to win the safety exchanges too and he's certainly my pick from this one to enter the quarter-finals.

Neil Robertson Vs Graeme Dott - The last two days matches from Neil Robertson against Martin O'Donnell and Fergal O'Brien finally saw the Australian start to show some form this season. His scoring looks to be sublime as usual and there haven't been as many sloppy mistakes as he exhibited in the summer and early Autumn. You cannot keep a player of Robertson's class down for very long and that's why you feel he may have a big week in him this week given his early results but tomorrow is another day. Graeme Dott has also looked impressive in the opening part of the week in wins against tough match players Jamie Burnett and Peter Ebdon and he will give Neil a run for his money in this game I expect. When Graeme is in form he's a very tough player to beat because he has the scoring to match his gritty safety play and overall match play. Neil in form is a different animal altogether and that's why I think he will make it to the quarter-finals and possibly well beyond that too.

Shaun Murphy Vs John Higgins - For guys of the class of Murphy and Higgins, the first thing to point out is that this is their first "major meeting" since the Masters in January 2013 and if this match is anything like that one, we will be witnessing something very special. Murphy came back from 4-1 down on that occasion, but it was Higgins making the comebacks today failing to lose another frame after going into his interval against Michael Holt 3-1 down, and making two centuries in there. As good as John is, he's not quite the same these days and he will offer Murphy enough chances to win the match if Shaun is at the top of his game. This is already the furthest Murphy has gone in the International Championship since 2012 and now that he's played himself into the tournament he has to be classed as a massive danger. His match against Jamie Jones today on the TV table was very impressive and I thought that Murphy looked like he was back at the very top of his game cueing sweetly and making a fortune when amongst the reds. Yet again this has the makings of a very close match and another classic between the pair, but I do not think that I can tip against Murphy having seen the way he's cueing this week.

Joe Perry Vs Ben Woollaston - The final game in the draw for the Last 16 looks like being yet another tightly contested one between Perry and Woollaston. This appearance for Ben is his best since losing in February's Welsh Open final, so perhaps he's finally starting to regain his confidence and get back close to the top of his game. It's not been easy for him either this week coming through two deciders, from 5-4 down against Robbie Williams and 3-1 down against Yu De Lu. Obviously playing Perry is a different match to those two that he has faced, but we know that Woollaston is very much capable of winning it. Joe hasn't been on his best form of late either and he didn't really have to do anything particularly special to beat Wang Yuchen. Against Dominic Dale he improved on that, but he still gave enough chances to Dom for him to have made it a much closer game and Ben will have his chances tomorrow. This was the tightest call in the draw for me, but I've chosen to go for a continued return to form for Woollaston after the hard graft he's already put in this week.


The TV matches for tomorrow are Shaun Murphy Vs John Higgins and Neil Robertson Vs Graeme Dott in the morning, whilst the afternoon sees Mark Allen Vs Tian Pengfei and Mark Selby Vs Michael White as the televised matches. That makes for some fantastic snooker viewing and I really look forward to watching the bits of it that I can do throughout the day.

World champion Bingham and defending champion Walden out in Daqing

Defending champion Ricky Walden is out of the International Championship after losing his held over Last 128 match 6-4 to Tian Pengfei while Stuart Bingham was thrashed in the Last 64 round 6-2 by Yu De Lu. Meanwhile Mark Selby, Shaun Murphy, Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui all made it into the Last 32 relatively comfortably, despite a scare for Ding in his held over Last 128 tie against Sam Craigie which he eventually won 6-4.

Zhou Yuelong also came through beating Martin Gould comfortably and against the odds 6-2, while Michael White survived a scare to losing 4 frames in a row having led Dechawat Poomjaeng 4-1, only to find himself 5-4 behind before winning 6-5. Paul Hunter Classic champion Ali Carter fell foul to the seemingly improving Jack Lisowski, and Matt Selt was thumped 6-1 Dominic Dale. Marco Fu won quite comfortably 6-2 in what could've been a tough game with Matthew Stevens, especially when the pair were level at 2-2 at the mid-session break.

Here are all of the results from the first two days in full:

Wildcard Round:

Noppon Saengkham 6-5 Lin Shuai
Daniel Wells 6-2 Fang Xiongman
Ken Doherty 6-2 Chen Zifan
Wang Yuchen 6-4 Aditya Mehta

Remaining Last 128 Games:

Tian Pengfei 6-4 Ricky Walden
Liang Wenbo 6-3 Alex Taubman
Ding Junhui 6-4 Sam Craigie
Stuart Bingham 6-1 Steven Hallworth

Last 64:

Tian Pengfei 6-2 Cao Yupeng
Liang Wenbo 6-4 Andrew Higginson
Kyren Wilson 6-4 Jamie Cope
Mark Allen 6-4 Joe Swail
Mark Williams 6-3 Ian Burns
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 6-5 Ross Muir
Zhou Yuelong 6-2 Martin Gould
Sanderson Lam 6-0 Michael Wild
Barry Hawkins 6-4 Chris Wakelin
Jimmy Robertson 6-2 Darryl Hill
Jack Lisowski 6-5 Ali Carter
Marco Fu 6-2 Matthew Stevens
Oliver Lines 6-4 Noppon Saengkham
David Gilbert 6-5 Xiao Guodong
Ryan Day 6-3 Mark Joyce
Ding Junhui 6-2 Craig Steadman
Mark Selby 6-3 Mike Dunn
Anthony McGill 6-0 Sean O'Sullivan
Lee Walker 6-4 Daniel Wells
Michael White 6-5 Dechawat Poomjaeng
Graeme Dott 6-2 Jamie Burnett
Peter Ebdon 6-0 Ken Doherty
Fergal O'Brien 6-3 Tom Ford
Neil Robertson 6-2 Martin O'Donnell
Shaun Murphy 6-2 Luca Brecel
Jamie Jones 6-2 Kurt Maflin
Michael Holt 6-4 Rod Lawler
John Higgins 6-2 Zhao Xintong
Joe Perry 6-1 Wang Yuchen
Dominic Dale 6-1 Matt Selt
Ben Woollaston 6-5 Robbie Williams
Yu De Lu 6-2 Stuart Bingham

What this all leaves is an exciting line-up with an interesting range of matches and players in the Last 32 round of best-of-11 matches in Daqing. This is the draw as it looks right now with my thoughts on the games:

Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)

Liang Wenbo Vs Tian Pengfei - The top match in the draw sees an all Chinese clash between Liang Wenbo and Tian Pengfei. Liang has had a close couple of matches already this week and been tested by both of Alex Taubman, and particularly against Andrew Higginson at 4-4, before Wenbo pulled away in the final two frames with two good contributions. Tian Pengfei meanwhile is in fine form of late, he's already seen off Ricky Walden with some very good snooker and beat Cao Yupeng comfortably in the Last 64. Tian was the runner-up at the Ruhr Open and that seems to have given him a great deal of confidence, which he took on to the Last 16 stage of the Asian Tour event last week and he's provisionally risen well inside of the top 64. I expect this match to be another close one for Liang, yet I think his lower ranked Chinese opponent will just be a little bit strong.

Mark Allen Vs Kyren Wilson - A real quality clash is the second on the bill, as last year's runner-up Mark Allen takes on Shanghai Master Kyren Wilson. Kyren had a tough first round match against Jamie Cope as expected and it won't get any easier against Mark, as he knocked in some good breaks beating Joe Swail in the first round this week. These two met of course in the semi-finals at the Shanghai Masters and Wilson won 6-1, but I expect that Allen will play a lot better this time around than he did on that occasion, and spurred on by that loss my prediction is for him to edge out a close contest.

Mark Williams Vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh - This battle shapes up on paper as one that will be a high scoring, fluent affair. Mark Williams won comfortably against Ian Burns in the first round and has been in good form for a while, as I said in my tournament preview blog, without really kicking on. Everyone now knows what Thepchaiya Un-Nooh is capable of, and even though he struggled against Ross Muir there were still plenty of sizeable breaks in there from the Thai. Un-Nooh is very attacking and unless that comes off a very high percentage of the time or he gets fortunate in a match, he won't beat the top players too regularly because they will be able to punish him. So, to beat Mark he's going to have to be on top form.

Zhou Yuelong Vs Sanderson Lam - Here we have a match between two much lower ranked players in Zhou Yuelong and Sanderson Lam. Starting with Lam, he may have won 6-0 in the opening round against Michael Wild, but it doesn't seem as though Lam did anything particularly special to achieve that and Wild still had his chances. However, Zhou Yuelong was much more convincing in beating much tougher opposition too, when he played Martin Gould. Zhou is a very talented young player as he showed when winning snooker's World Cup in June. I make Zhou a big favourite to make it through this one also.

Barry Hawkins Vs Jimmy Robertson - Barry Hawkins played out a high scoring 6-4 win against Chris Wakelin in round one, with both players making plenty of 50+ contributions, while Jimmy Robertson made a 141 on the way to his first round win against Darryl Hill, so a high scoring match can be expected again here. Jimmy showed good form last week in making the semi-finals of the Asian tour event, while Barry has played well so far on the European Tour this year. I also expected big things from Hawkins at the start of the week, and the way he played against Wakelin, I don't think I have a clear reason to change my mind on that call here.

Marco Fu Vs Jack Lisowski - Up next I believe we have a little clash of styles in some ways between Jack Lisowski and Marco Fu. Marco was impressive in his first round win versus Matthew Stevens and he showed some signs of his scoring form returning to him when he played in last weeks Asian Tour event. Jack Lisowski will be an equally good match for him, especially as he starts to work more on the tactical and mental side of the game with Terry Griffiths. Progress has been made from what you can see of his results this season, particularly by beating Ali Carter. However, Rome wasn't built in a day and for Jack that means that he can't expect too much too soon so playing Fu presents new challenges and he'll have to be on top scoring form to beat another player of great experience and resilience.

David Gilbert Vs Oliver Lines - Again here we have two players that you wouldn't normally expect to be meeting in the Last 32 of a major event. Gilbert had a bit of a lean time before his performance at the Ruhr Open to make the semi-finals of the event and he came so close to the final also. Again David is a fantastic player when in form, and he's a match for many of the top players when playing like we know he can. Oliver Lines meanwhile hasn't had the most convincing start to his season, and two good frames at the end of his match with Noppon Saengkham saw him just pull away there but against Gilbert he will need to up his standard from that of which he's shown in losing to Jimmy White in the Shanghai qualifiers and to a Chinese amateur in last weeks AT event to pick out just two of his results. I think David will certainly his chances of making further progress after another good win against Guodong in round one.

Ding Junhui Vs Ryan Day - Ding Junhui and Ryan Day is always a match that jumps out at you in a draw, anytime that they meet and simply because of all of the great matches they've played over the years. Most recently they played out another thriller in the Shanghai Masters where Day was unlucky to lose 5-4, but that was revenge in a way for when Day beat Ding by the same score at February's German Masters. Ryan has always been a quality player and always mixes it well with the top players like Ding, and when you have a decent record like Day does against someone of Ding's pedigree it gives you great confidence coming into a game. Ding was a little shaky against Sam Craigie in his held over Last 128 tie, while the Welshman was at his high scoring best against Mark Joyce. Having won the Asian tour event recently Ding will be confident, but he's also played a lot of snooker in a short space of time so you do have to think that the more he gets pushed, the less there is going to be in the tank to offer a response and that may be the crucial ingredient, in a match that past experience suggests will be close.

Mark Selby Vs Anthony McGill - Whenever these two guys meet from now, you can't really help but think back to their World Championship Last 16 match of this year which was won by Anthony. Things have moved on since then, and neither player has hardly shot out of the gates this season so far. According to Sean O'Sullivan's view on Twitter, his 6-0 loss to McGill in round one was the "least one sided whitewash you'll ever see" which is interesting, while Selby appeared to be at his granite like best against Mike Dunn after a slow start to the match, and that's a good sign for Mark that he's going to be very tough to beat this week, and that could be evident as this match goes on.

Michael White Vs Lee Walker - This all-Welsh tie may look like an obvious call on paper, but it really is far from that. White has hardly been impressive lately, and he really struggled to kill off his match against Dechawat Poomjaeng in round one, so much so that from 4-1 ahead he had to come back from a frame down to win 6-5. Lee Walker was very gritty in coming back from 5-3 behind to beat Mark Davis in the qualifying round around a month ago, and the same was true today as he seemed to be getting outplayed by Wells trailing 3-1 at the interval, only to take a 5-4 lead before having to come back after the evening session to finish and win 6-4. If the game goes as scrappy as that one, this would most likely be Lee's best chance of winning, as Michael will really need to find his usual fluency to get through this one, but from the younger Welshman's viewpoint I think he'll have that extra bit of quality to get the job done.

Graeme Dott Vs Peter Ebdon - In my view this looks to be one of the matches of the entire round, especially after the way they both played in round one and the historic games they have played previously. Ebdon knocked the stuffing out of Ken Doherty with his heavy scoring, adding three breaks of 80+ to a century. Meanwhile, I think Jamie Burnett could've got closer to Graeme than the 6-2 score suggests, but that doesn't take anything away from some of the clinical scoring that the 2006 world champion displayed. It's always a good game between these two, but that will be doubly the case if they both show that same fine form. I believed at the start of the week that Peter would go very well this week in Daqing, and his encouraging display against Ken has only added fuel to the fire that was started by his record in the International as well as his shining record in China overall.

Neil Robertson Vs Fergal O'Brien - At the beginning of the week I didn't expect much from Neil Robertson and looking through the draw I sighted this as a possible exit point for the Australian. It was really only until the last three frames of his match against Martin O'Donnell that he started to knock in the big breaks (with two centuries) and take total control of the game, but against someone as tough as Fergal this will be nowhere near as easy. O'Brien scored very well in his 6-3 match against Tom Ford, which on paper could've been much closer than it ended up. Fergal always poses a good challenge for the top players, and has twice come from behind to beat an out of form Stuart Bingham already this season. I have a feeling that there could be an upset brewing in this one if Neil isn't consistent with his game throughout the match.

Shaun Murphy Vs Jamie Jones - Shaun and Jamie usually have some very close an interesting games. Jones beat Murphy at the 2012 World Championship when he ended up making the quarter-finals and beat Shaun again at this years Welsh Open. Meanwhile, Shaun was the winner in their only Chinese meeting at this years China Open as well as hitting a 147 against the Welshman in the 2014 Gdynia Open. Jamie looked impressive with the breaks he notched up against a tough player in Kurt Maflin. Meanwhile, Shaun missed out on a maximum break after 11 reds and blacks in frame three on his way to a 6-2 win against Luca Brecel (because every match has been a struggle for Shaun lately you know). If Shaun really warms into this week like we all know he can, he's going to be a very dangerous customer and even though this is a tough match, I expect Shaun to shine.

John Higgins Vs Michael Holt - Michael Holt is another one of Terry Griffith's new crop for this season and already he's showing good signs, especially in a character testing 6-4 first round win in a marathon against granite Rod Lawler. John could've had a much tougher game with Zhao Xintong than he did in round one, but his safety play just appeared to be several leagues above the youngster and that was always likely to be the deciding factor. It seems to me that Holt is gaining in confidence this season, and is really looking forward to every test on the baize which this will be by far. If you couple some of Holt's wins this season, with some of John's inconsistency as he gets older and is not playing to the standard that we became so used to in the past, then Holty has a good chance of getting another very good win under his belt.

Joe Perry Vs Dominic Dale - Both of these two guys won 6-1 in the opening round, but they seemed to do so in much different styles. Dominic was very clinical against tougher opposition in Matt Selt and to beat someone rising as fast as Selt has been in the last year, as convincingly as that is a great effort. Joe meanwhile had a much easier match with Wang Zepeng, only needing one 50+ contribution in his 6-1 win, as he appeared to just pick up the pieces from Wang's mistakes in what should've been a much closer contest. Joe hasn't been shining as bright at the start of this season as he did last year, while Dale showed good form in last weeks AT event, so much so that he'll very much fancy his chances in this match.

Ben Woollaston Vs Yu De Lu - The final match in the Last 32 is between Ben Woollaston and Bingham's conqueror Yu De Lu. By Bingham's own admission he was poor in that 6-2 loss and it wasn't as if Yu completely outplayed him as both guys had plenty of chances. The Chinaman hasn't had the best time of things in the last season or two and I think he will have to improve if he's to beat Woollaston if he's anywhere near his usual standard. Woollaston didn't have an easy game with Robbie Williams, but to come from 5-4 behind showed good character, especially as Robbie has become pretty tough to beat and did most of the running, so that will give Ben a lot of confidence and I fancy him to be too strong for Yu in this one.



With all of those matches being played tomorrow in sessions of 8, it's going to be an action packed day of snooker in Daqing as the field gets narrowed down from 32 to 16 ahead of Wednesday's action, and this is the point in the week where you feel that things really start to get going with all players at least a match in, and all the pleasantries of wildcard and held over matches have been dealt with. With serious money at stake, it's a time of serious business for the players. I'll be back with my next update at this time tomorrow to see which 16 remain at the International Championship.

International Championship Preview

Starting on Sunday, we have the biggest money event outside of the Triple Crown and that is the International Championship. The winner of the event, which has been moved halfway across China from Chengdu to a new destination of Daqing. I'm not sure why they've done that, and the first thing i'd like to point out is that it wasn't particularly easy to find a map of China with Daqing pointed out on it, while the actual name of the city roughly means "Great Celebration" which of course it will be for the winner of the title and the £125,000 first prize. Daqing is also known as the "oil capital of China" and the overall population is 12 million less than Chengdu so it will be interesting to see what crowds are like this week, because it does seem like a bizarre place to hold a snooker event.

Geography lesson over and back to the snooker, I've already mentioned the big money prize at the end of the week for the winner, and that also ties in with the longer format for this event, a format that is even longer than the UK Championship these days. Matches are best-of-11 for the early rounds, and then move to best-of-17 for the semi-finals (which was scrapped from the UK's in 2014) and best-of-19 frames for the final. With the UK Championship only just over a month away itself it will be good to watch events this week and start to get into the spirit of the heavy snooker period to come ahead of the first triple crown event of the season.

Of course, the Last 128 round was played in Barnsley, other than the matches of defending champion Ricky Walden Vs Tian Pengfei, World Champion Stuart Bingham Vs Steven Hallworth, and the top two Chinese players Ding Junhui (who will play amateur Sam Craigie) and Liang Wenbo (who will play amateur Alex Taubman). That all came after Mark Selby and Ding Junhui (world champion and China's No.1 at the time respectively) failed to make it to the venue. However, this year Judd Trump has failed to qualify after losing 6-0 to Michael Wild in the qualifying round. Stephen Maguire also fell in the Last 128 to Noppon Saenghkham 6-2 as the Scot's struggles continue. Robert Milkins won't be repeating his semi-final appearance of Chengdu last year, having lost in the Last 128 round also, 6-4 to Darryl Hill.

There is also the unfortunate wildcard round for the four victims who have been drawn at random to play in that and they are Daniel Wells, Ken Doherty, Noppon Saengkham and Aditya Mehta and their wildcard opponents don't look like particularly easy ones either so that will be tough going for those 4.

The whole week of snooker will be broadcast as usual on Eurosport and i'm really looking forward to watching unfold over the upcoming 8 days, so here's a look at the draw, my views on the players involved and some predictions:

Quarter 1

Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)

Ricky Walden/Tian Pengfei Vs Cao Yupeng
Liang Wenbo/Alex Taubman Vs Andrew Higginson
Kyren Wilson Vs Jamie Cope
Mark Allen Vs Joe Swail
Mark Williams Vs Ian Burns
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Vs Ross Muir
Martin Gould Vs Zhou Yuelong
Sanderson Lam Vs Michael Wild

This is one of the most interesting quarters of the draw as we have not only the defending champion from last year Ricky Walden, but Mark Allen who lost 10-7 to Ricky in the final and Mark Williams who lost 9-8 to Mark Allen in last years semi-finals, in my favourite match of 2014. Also, we have recent Shanghai Masters champion Kyren Wilson and Australian Open runner-up Martin Gould all present in this section of the draw.

First off, Martin Gould will feel like he has a good chance this week of going well yet again. A final appearance in the Australian Open was joined by a quarter-final at the Shanghai Masters, which should've been more after Stuart Bingham won all of the last 3 frames to come back from 4-2 down. It feels as if Martin is really ready to break through and kick on, having had his prior taste of being a top 16 player, and he certainly has the potential to be a tournament winner. Perhaps not an event such as this, but maybe something like the Shanghai Masters like Kyren Wilson or the Australian Open which he came so close to finishing off this year. Although, having said that it wouldn't take much for this draw to open up and a door to open for Martin to go really deep this week.

Ricky Walden has had an up and down time of things this season. This is mainly due to the birth of his first child. The birth came around the time of the Shanghai Masters which meant he withdrew from the event, while in the European Tour events his focus has understandably been elsewhere. A first round exit in the Paul Hunter Classic came right at the time of the due date, while the Ruhr Open was the first event since the birth. Although, he did choose to play at the Asian Tour event which has been going on this week and he was the runner-up to Ding Junhui there having led 3-1 in the final. So the signs are there that he'll be ready to go and defend his title this week in Daqing, but if he does get a couple of wins together he may begin to feel homesick, with this already becoming his longest period away from home since the birth.

Mark Williams has been showing signs in recent times that he could be about to re-enter the winners circle, but at the moment he just isn't managing that final burst at the back end of events. Quarter-final appearances in the Ruhr Open, Shanghai Masters and Paul Hunter Classic are all well and good but they aren't getting him the silverware that he is still well capable of winning. The fact that he came within a frame of winning the Players Championship, losing from 3-0 up in the final to Joe Perry just indicates that he could still easily go out and win an event, and he was only a frame from making the final of this event last year. A place in the champion of champions for the winner of this event may be the inspiration he needs to go out and win the £125,000 top prize this week, as I know that is something that his personal trainer Steve is eyeing. Even with the results from his season so far that I've mentioned with a few quarter-finals, he still may not even be 100% with the shoulder he had an operation on in July, although the signs in Mulheim and Shanghai were that he's not feeling too much pain so it's time to kick on. To compare his form to that of a batsman in Cricket, Williams keeps getting decent innings in the 50's, 60's and 70's but really needs that one innings where he scores a big century for everyone to take notice, and maybe this week will be his week to get that "big score".

Mark Allen was the runner-up here to Ricky Walden last year, and like Ricky, he appears to play better in China than anywhere else in the world. His two ranking titles both came in the same Chinese event in consecutive years, while last season he reached the final in Shanghai as well as Chengdu. He's not had the worst start to the season either making the Last 16 of two out of three European Tour events as well as making the semi's in Shanghai so I think he's gearing up for a really big run for what would really be the first time since this event a year ago, and how close he came there to victory will spur him on to go one better this year. Allen is definitely a title contender this week in Daqing, and I must say that i'm expecting big things from the Northern Irishman.

Quarter Winner: Mark Allen

Quarter 2

Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)

Barry Hawkins Vs Chris Wakelin
Jimmy Robertson Vs Darryl Hill
Ali Carter Vs Jack Lisowski
Marco Fu Vs Matthew Stevens
Oliver Lines Vs Noppon Saengkham/Lin Shuai
Xiao Guodong Vs David Gilbert
Ryan Day Vs Mark Joyce
Ding Junhui/Sam Craigie Vs Craig Steadman

In the other section making up the top half of the draw we find Riga Open champion Barry Hawkins and Paul Hunter Classic champion Ali Carter. As well as this we have the two 2013 finallists who have a lot of money to defend and they are Ding Junhui and Marco Fu.

Ali Carter has had a good start to the season by winning the Paul Hunter Classic at the back end of August, and this is only his second trip out to China for a competition since the General Cup in Hong Kong a year ago (which he also won), with the other being his 5-4 first round loss to Kurt Maflin in the China Open so it could go either way for Ali this week. Jack Lisowski is his first round opponent in Daqing and certain people have already begun to see subtle changes and improvements in Jack's game since he started working with Terry Griffiths at the start of the season. He was said to be much more defensive in his qualifying match for this against Hossein Vafei Ayouri who I actually thought would give him a really close game, but that was not the case. Carter's win in Furth is also only one step towards getting back to where he needs to be and he needs to continue producing that, but it's not that easy and he'll know that, so we can't expect massive things from him every single week.

Marco Fu may have been the runner-up at the International two years ago, but his recent form has been nothing short of woeful. If he doesn't start stepping up soon his place in the top 16 is in real jeopardy and the only way for him will be down the rankings. His loss to Mike Dunn in the Shanghai Masters made it two first round exits in two years at that event, while in the European Tour events he's failed to get past the opening day of three matches. Even this week in the Asian Tour event he showed signs of improvement but still couldn't go any further than the Last 16, and even then he was lucky to get that far. If the man from Hong Kong is to get anywhere close to repeating his form of two years ago, a drastic improvement in form will be needed.

Ding Junhui will be much happier and have improved confidence after his victory in the Haining Open event this week. Even if many top players weren't present and the only time he had to play a top player was in the final (which he won from 3-1 behind) it's still a confidence booster as he enters an important part of his season and career. After his performances of two years ago, he is provisionally set to drop in the seedings list from third, to eighth in the list even with his Asian Tour title. He also has the tough task of keeping his energy levels up after a big week in Haining, as he must now fly to Daqing ready to play just 48 hours after finishing the final with Walden. The fact that his Last 128 match has been held over also means that Ding must play that on Sunday, and his Last 64 game on Monday, so to get out of this quarter he'll have to play 5 best-of-11 matches in 5 days, which is very unusual for one of these Chinese events. Craig Steadman in the Last 64 will be no pushover and amateur Sam Craigie could well push him after some decent showings in the Ruhr Open himself (leading Shaun Murphy 2-0 at one stage). Then if Ryan Day could beat Mark Joyce, he would be Ding's Last 32 opponent if he can get through those first two games, and his games with Day are always very tough. So, by no means is it going to be easy if Ding is to repeat his feat of two years ago.

Barry Hawkins is one man that, despite his win in the first European Tour event, has still somewhat been under the radar this season. In the recent Ruhr Open he made the quarter-finals before losing to David Gilbert so he's playing pretty solid stuff so far. His Shanghai Masters 5-1 first round exit to Martin Gould appeared to be a temporary blip as he really just did not show up at all, and that could have been caused by any number of things. Barry usually does well when the format of matches is increased, and of course this is the first tournament of best-of-11's since his embarrassing loss from -0 ahead in last year's UK Championship so he'll be looking to right some wrongs there. All things considered Barry is solid player who quietly goes about his business and I don't think this week will be any different, which certainly makes him a contender for the crown next Sunday.

Quarter Winner: Barry Hawkins

Quarter 3

Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)

Mark Selby Vs Mike Dunn
Anthony McGill Vs Sean O'Sullivan
Lee Walker Vs Daniel Wells/Fang Xiongman
Michael White Vs Dechawat Poomjaeng
Graeme Dott Vs Jamie Burnett
Peter Ebdon Vs Ken Doherty/Chen Zifan
Fergal O'Brien Vs Tom Ford
Neil Robertson Vs Martin O'Donnell

Onto the bottom half of the draw and this looks like one of the most intriguing quarters of the draw on the surface. It features 2012 runner-up Neil Robertson as well as number one in the rankings Mark Selby. Graeme Dott has money to defend after his run to the 2013 semi-finals, while Michael White will be looking to get his season going again. Possible underdogs in this section of the draw are "veterans" Fergal O'Brien and Peter Ebdon the latter of whom made the semi's of this event in 2012 and the quarters in 2013.

As I mentioned Peter Ebdon has a pretty good record at the International Championship, and all over China really as a former champion of the China Open. He seems to adjust well to conditions in Asia and often has runs from the outside in these Chinese events as he proved in 2012 and 2013 and the draw this week doesn't set up horribly for him. A likely first round match against Ken Doherty he'd probably be favourite for, and he wouldn't have to meet a full top 16 player until the last 16 (with Dott ranking 17th) and even then, Neil Robertson has been struggling a lot this season so you never know with Peter.

Michael White is another player who has been shaky at the start of the season. He was beaten heavily in the first round of the Shanghai Masters, and is yet to impress too much on the European Tour either. In fact he's not as yet managed to kick on and move forward from his Indian Open victory in March. His draw for the first couple of rounds could be tougher but he'll still need to be on top of his game to progress in this tournament. Especially with a possible Last 16 meeting with Mark Selby. It was even a struggle to qualify for White in fact as his game with Alfie Burden went right down to the wire and he was lucky to get over the line. That could be a good sign for White as he looks for his fortunes to change or it may just be another indicator that there's room for improvement.

It's not at all harsh to say that Neil Robertson has struggled horrendously this season and comes into this event with absolutely no form. The only match he's won this season was his qualifier for the main stages of this event, and even then he had to come from 3-1 down to beat amateur Kuldesh Johal. He's only entered one of the European Tour events so isn't incredibly match sharp as yet either, and that was at the Ruhr Open where he lost 4-3 against James Cahill. 5-4 losses at the Shanghai Masters to Jamie Cope and the Australian Open to Matt Selt show exactly why improvement is needed. For fear of sounding like a broken record, his game hasn't quite been the same since his 10-2 loss in January's Masters final, and that could be down to a number of things. If you look too much into his Twitter feed you'll see that he likes to spend the majority of his time playing video games, and watching various series of programming on the Television. I don't want to point to that reason as the one for his poor form in recent months, but his season is already becoming reminiscent to that of the one Ding Junhui went through last year. Not playing many European Tour events led to early exits through lack of match practice and preparation, and those confidence denting losses just helped to continue the spiral. The Australian is far too good a player not to come out the other side of this snookering slump, but there could be a lot of time left to run in this monologue before that happens.

Someone else who falls into the Ricky Walden category of having a "stop-start" season is Mark Selby. Due to family bereavement he withdrew from the Shanghai Masters, though at the recent Ruhr Open I think he showed good signs that his best wasn't too far away losing out narrowly to Mark Williams in the Last 16 and the way the draw panned out that week, he easily could've gone on to win the whole event. Having not qualified for this event a year ago, he has a point to prove in some ways and will want to make up for that disappointment. Mark has always had a good record in China, and the International Championship is one of the few events where he hasn't reached at least a final in it's history, so that could well change this week also. In fact, Selby is one of the players you'd always like to be when playing in China. Whether he suffers from jet lag or not, or if the table conditions are not easy for playing fluent snooker, Selby is one of the best at adapting to that and grinding his way through a match. He doesn't necessarily have to play show stopping snooker to win an event, just keep battling and make the important contributions at the right time, which he has such a great knack of doing. When it comes to playing in Asia, Selby is always going to be a title contender.

Quarter Winner: Mark Selby

Quarter 4

Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)

Shaun Murphy Vs Luca Brecel
Jamie Jones Vs Kurt Maflin
Michael Holt Vs Rod Lawler
John Higgins Vs Zhao Xintong
Joe Perry Vs Aditya Mehta/Wang Yuchen
Matt Selt Vs Dominic Dale
Ben Woollaston Vs Robbie Williams
Stuart Bingham/Steven Hallworth Vs Yu DeLu

The big name of course in the final section of the draw is world champion Stuart Bingham, while Masters champion Shaun Murphy will be in the hunt for something more like his 2012 International semi-final showing. The same could be said for Joe Perry who made the semi's in 2013 and has plenty of ranking money to defend on that front. Australian Open champion John Higgins will also hope for another good week, while guys like Matt Selt, Ben Woollaston and Michael Holt could make big runs from the outside this week.

Joe Perry has not exactly had his greatest ever start to a season at the beginning of this snooker campaign, but there's still loads of time for him to turn that around. In the Shanghai Masters he fell in the first round to Kyren Wilson, so in many ways there you could say he was unlucky with the draw. In the European Tour events it's also been a tale of struggles as he's not made it past the Last 32 of any of the three tournaments so far and that will disappoint him as the defending Players Champion. If anything spurs Joe into action this week it will be the thoughts of how much ranking money he has coming off by making it to the semi's of this event two years ago, and he needs to go deep this week to not do large amounts of damage. Joe is like many players in this draw who have had bad starts to the season, and you think it won't be long before they get going, but there's no way that they could all explode into life at once realistically. However, believing that they all work very hard to continually improve, then you'll never keep a hard working talent down for too long.

John Higgins may have won the Australian Open in the early stages of this campaign, but since then he hasn't really done all that much and gone back to some of the inconsistencies that have blighted the latest passage of his career. He didn't compete in the Ruhr Open, but did show up at the Asian Tour event, only to lose in the Last 16 after struggling past Chinese amateur players in the early stages of the event. He also suffered early exits in the two European Tour events that he did show up for and with such inconsistencies, a tough draw like the one he has been presented with in the early stages of this event doesn't bode well for his chances of running deep and picking up a large cheque.

Stuart Bingham again has had a very stop start season. I was very surprised to see him skip the Asian Tour event last week, as usually enters a high percentage of those and has an incredibly good record in them. Especially after the start he's had since becoming world champion, he could really have done with some confidence boosting wins, the likes of which Ding Junhui has picked up instead. Fergal O'Brien has twice seen him off coming from behind in the first round of both the Australian Open, and more recently in Mulheim. A first round exit was also suffered at the hands of John Higgins from 3-1 ahead in the Paul Hunter Classic. The fact that he has lost a number of matches from winning positions is almost as alarming as those early exits, and even though he showed signs of a little form on the way to the Shanghai Masters, large parts of the early rounds there were also a struggle and he was far from in full control of his game. He's also in that horrible position where he has a lot of matches coming thick and fast at the beginning of this tournament and he will have to play every day in the first 5 to reach the semi-finals. With so many hurdles to overcome early on, deep progression in this event will certainly not be a given for Bingham.

To start my little paragraph on the chances of Shaun Murphy this week, i'm going to do something that I wouldn't usually and that is to point out something that I saw in another preview on a website that I shall not name. When discussing Shaun they said that "every match seemed like a struggle" for him. As I've brought this up you know i'm going to have a strong opinion, and in my view I think that's total nonsense. Shaun has already reached one final in the early stages of this season at the Paul Hunter Classic, while Last 16 exits in the other two ET events are far from shocking displays either. They pointed to an early exit in the Australian Open as one example, but i'm sure Shaun wouldn't mind me saying that his preparation wasn't great for what would've been a very tough early season encounter with Ali Carter nonetheless. Shanghai was the only time I believed that he did struggle having to come from 4-1 down against Ebdon, before losing from 3-1 up to Mark Davis. However, that is a blip in an incredible 12 months for Murphy, and not a part of a trend. Shaun loves he events like this when the format is longer than what is the norm these days, and with a big money prize he considers this a big event and is fully charged up and ready to unleash himself on this tournament. Early exits in the 2013 ad 2014 stagings of this event gives himself something to improve upon and it would be foolish not to be putting Murphy on your list of potential winners this week.

Quarter Winner: Shaun Murphy

Predicted Tournament Runner-Up: Barry Hawkins

Predicted Tournament Winner: Mark Selby


A very exciting looking event is in prospect here over a little longer format, as the players enjoy these types of events more and will be well aware of the money on offer to the winner and the coveted places in the Champion of Champions next month and the World Grand Prix in March.

I hope you've all enjoyed my preview and will also enjoy the coverage of the event. I'll be back throughout the week here on the blog with updates and views both forward on back on the action we've seen and what lies ahead.

STAT ATTACK: International Championship

As the International Championship approaches in Daqing, China it's time to have a look ahead to what we can expect this week in the new feature I have been developing on the blog. That is of course my statistical view, and whether the stats can tell us anything that we would not necessarily have thought of otherwise and offer that new angle.

The slightly annoying thing in terms of when I look at head to head offerings later is that there are still 8 Last 64 matches which are unknown, leaving me 24 where I can look at any previous meetings.

Of course the International Championship has been staged 3 times previously and has always been played under the same format. It may have moved this year across China to Daqing but that should make little difference to things overall.

With the semi-finals being best-of-17 they are always played on separate days (Friday and Saturday) with the final on Sunday. So, the first thing to look at is whether there is an advantage having the Saturday off or not. Well, 2 of the 3 champions (2012 and 2014)  have come through the Friday semi-final, and each of the finals has been close (10-8 in 2012, 10-9 in 2013 and 10-7 in 2014) so that may explain that interesting trend. Ding is the odd one out after winning his semi-final on Saturday, but his opponent Marco Fu in 2013 had come through 2 deciders in the 2 previous rounds, so the law of averages said he was odds against to do 3 in a row.

Marco Fu has also won the most matches at the International Championship with 2 more than nearest contender Mark Allen. This comes after he made the 2013 final and the quarter-finals in 2012 and 2014.

It may surprise many that Peter Ebdon is 3rd on the list of most International Championship wins. He made the semi-finals in 2012 losing to eventual champion Judd Trump, and he also lost to the eventual champion Ding Junhui in the 2013 quarter-finals.

Ricky Walden is the defending champion this week, but the defending champion in this event doesn't have a particularly spectacular record. Judd Trump was defending champion in 2013 and he lost in his first match at the venue, 6-5 to Alan McManus in the Last 64. Meanwhile, when Ding Junhui was defending champion in 2014, he failed to even make the venue, losing to Wang Zepeng 6-5 in the Last 128 round played at Barnsley.

Marco Fu has played his fair share of deciders in this competition as I hinted earlier, and he has played 6 overall, winning 4 of them which is more than anyone else. Peter Ebdon has also come through 3 deciders out of 3 played in the International Championships, which is the most deciders played to have a 100% decider winning rate.

Neil Robertson leads the way on the centuries front in the International's 3 year history. Having made 18 across those 3 events, 4 more than Mark Allen who is his nearest rival, showing once again Mark's good record in this event previously.

13.85. This is the average number of frames across the first three years of the competition (including qualifiers) per century break that was made. Basically an average of one every 2 games played which is a decent standard of play in a Chinese event.

Coming back yet again to Marco Fu, his Last 64 match against Matthew Stevens boasts an interesting head to head. It's 5-3 to Stevens but that doesn't tell the story as Fu's 3 wins have come in their latest 3 meetings.

When looking at Ryan Day's head to head with Mark Joyce it can quickly be noted that the last meeting between the pair came at this tournament a year ago, and went down to a decider with Day the eventual winner of that contest.


As for the statistics of the season so far, there's plenty of interesting angles to take. Underestimate Thepchaiya Un-Nooh at your peril this week. Thanks to his run in this weeks Asian Tour event to the quarter-final, and his win at the 6 Reds World Championship, Un-Nooh has the highest win percentage 87.5%. Although, he has only played 4 events, and Kyren Wilson with 80.95% has played two events more so far this season.

Surely Stuart Bingham's bad form cannot last for two much longer. Six events into his season and his win percentage is only 50%.

Can we expect a close match between Kyren Wilson and Jamie Cope in the Last 64? Well the season statistics suggest that. They have each played six deciding frames this season, and they have both also won 5 of those 6 deciders which is quite extraordinary.

If Luca Brecel is at his scoring best, Shaun Murphy will have a very tough game on his hands. Luca is joint second on the season centuries chart with Tian Pengfei (who plays Ricky Walden in a Last 128 match that's been heldover) with 8 centuries each. Judd has the most but he was unable to qualify for the venue.

If you listen to one particular statistic it could be pointed out that Michael White is struggling this season. Looking at a tally of points scored "For and against" each player, White has a final "points difference" of -127. That is the lowest of anyone inside the top 64 that's qualified to take part at the venue this week.


This event is also the last one before the seeding's cut off for the UK Championship. If Ronnie enters (becoming no.1 seed as defending champion) an interesting battle is in progress for seeds 4 and 5 (3 and 4 in the rankings) between Shaun Murphy and Neil Robertson. Coming into the event only £8,827 sits between them, so a big week for Murphy could see him leapfrog Neil. A much tighter sum of money stands between Dominic Dale in 32nd and Peter Ebdon. £8. A simply amazing difference in the battle for the top 32.

Meanwhile, Tian Pengfei will be in the top 64 if he could beat Ricky Walden in their held-over Last 128 tie, which would see Peter Lines slide outside of the 64.

The last bit of information in my Stats and Information guide to the International Championships is of course to point out that if the winner of this event has not yet won a tournament, he will of course make it into the Champion of Champions event. Ding Junhui, Mark Allen, Ricky Walden, Marco Fu and Mark Williams are currently the 5 highest ranked players not to put their name in the hat for Coventry. (Ronnie O'Sullivan of course has qualified but has chosen not to take up his place).


That's all from me in the Stat Attack feature which has also turned into a handy information guide to accompany my tournament preview (which itself will be published in the next day or two). Otherwise, i'll be back with a statistical review sometime following the event and again all feedback is welcome.

Fantasy Snooker: International Championship Players and Points Update

The events are coming thick and fast on the snooker circuit now and that means there's going to be a lot of fantasy snooker. After missing the Asian Tour event because it's far too pointless to do with only about 50 pro's in a field of 128, we're back this week with information on the International Championship which starts on SUNDAY and not a Monday like some of you might assume. With this also comes a points update following the Ruhr Open where Rory McLeod walked away with the title. Someone that none of the competitors chose to spend their money on.

In addition to the latest table featuring the money that you have in hand or "owe" to the game being shown in the table, I will also demonstrate the big movers by adding who everyone picked and how many points that scored them. All is revealed here:

1^st: Igor: 176 +0.6 million Trump (0) and Pengfei (42)

2^nd: Gary: 173 +2 million Jones (7) and Brecel (25)

3^rd: Kjetil: 172 -0.2 million Brecel (25) and Day (5)

4^th: Anthony Ward: 168 +0.3 million Day (5) and MJW (24)

5^th: Gorken Kurt: 161 +0.1 million Pengfei (42) and Selby (19)

6^th: Phil Mudd: 135 +1.7 million Selt (5) and Kyren (7)

7^th: Spanish Snooker Blog: 125 +0.1 million White (7) and Davis (26)

8^th: SnookerFollower: 122 +6 million Williams (24) and Dott (9)

9^th: LTD: 117 +3 million Murphy (19)

10^th: John McBride: 93 +5.5 million Dott (9)

11^th: Kai: 91  +3 million Trump (0) and Murphy (19)

12^th: Chris Watts: 86 +0.6 million Trump (0) and Ford (0)

13^th: Andrew Brooker: 78 +12.8 million Hawkins (28)

14^th: Josh Cooper: 74 +9 million

15^th: TungstenDarts: 55 +9.4 million Allen (19) and Woollaston (19)

15^th: Michael Coudray: 55 +6.5 million Trump (0)

17^th: Ezgi Ulutas: 53 +7.5 million McGill (10)

18^th: Guillermo: 43  -0.1 million Trump (0)

19^th Kellie Barker: 42 +2.7 million White (7)

20^th: Sean: 20 +1 million

 

So that's how everything looks right now, but here are the players that can help further your position in the table over the next week or so. Be aware that players are priced on their original seeding, which will explain some of the gaps by top seeds like Trump and Maguire losing their qualifiers. Also be aware that the 4 Last 128 matches held over to the venue and the 4 wildcard round matches do NOT count towards the points.

 

Ricky Walden– 6 million

Stuart Bingham – 5.8 million

Mark Selby – 5.6 million

Ding Junhui – 5.5 million

Neil Robertson – 5.4 million

Shaun Murphy – 5.3 million

Barry Hawkins– 5 million

Joe Perry – 4.9 million

Mark Allen – 4.8 million

John Higgins – 4.6 million

Marco Fu – 4.5 million

Mark Williams – 4.2 million

Michael White – 4.1 million

Graeme Dott – 4 million

Players Seeded 17-32 – 3.5 million

Players Seeded 33-48 – 3 million

Players Seeded 49-64 – 2.5 million

Players seeded 65- 80 – 2 million

Players seeded 81 or below – 1 million

So then, have a look at the draw to make sure you know who's involved and make your selections. The deadline is by the first matches in the early hours of Sunday morning so be aware and be ready. Good Luck!!!

Slow Play - What could be done and what should be done?

Slow play in Snooker. This is something that's got everybody talking lately, so I've chosen to come over to the blog to debate the possible pro's and con's of possible developments that could be made and whether slow play is a problem and in what ways it can be dealt with. The first thing that's worth noting is that I've developed quite the one-sided opinion on this, to the stage that i'll soon be having my own stopwatch out timing some of these matches for myself.

Is the problem getting worse? Well, there are a few indicators that this may be happening. Firstly, at the Ruhr Open, Alan McManus and Barry Pinches set a new world record for the longest professional frame at 100 minutes. The match overall lasted 5 hours for 7 frames, so even without that 1 hour 40 minute frame, the other six still took 3 hours and 20 minutes. An average of just above 33 minutes per frame played. A week earlier, Alan McManus was involved in a best of 11 with Ross Muir, which again went the distance, and took over 7 hours to be played, and the best part of 3 hours to reach it's mid-session interval after the first four frames. At the Riga Open, a first round match between Nigel Bond and Peter Ebdon set a new record for the longest best-of-7 frames match. In an age where sports like Tennis and Golf are attempting to sort out slow play, with players being seen to be put on the clock in the marquee group of a major championship, while the top players in Tennis are now being warned for taking too long serving the ball, snooker appears to be going backwards.

The return argument to all of this is that there has always been slow play in snooker, so why should things change now. Complaints are starting to become a lot more common amongst players about slow play, simply because they feel the sport needs to move on. These are players that don't want the sport to go backwards again, and have ambitions to see it up there with the likes of Golf and Tennis at the top of the tree in terms of individual sports. The key for that to happen is to earn a greater following the USA and of course become an Olympic sport. What better way to become a global sport than to put yourself in the biggest global event there is. However, who's going to want to watch snooker at the Olympics if frames are consistently lasting over 30 minutes and players are taking 10 seconds longer a shot than is truly necessary. To expand, you always have to look beyond what you have now and dream bigger. The problem with trying to conquer a wider fan base in this day and age is that people seem to have very short attention spans. Snooker also doesn't want to alienate it's current, loyal fan base which is where a shot clock may well go too far. Yet there is still a lot of middle ground between where we are know and where we would be with the introduction of giving players a time limit on shots.

On the opening two days of the European Tour events when 56 matches are scheduled to take place over usually 10 or 11 tables in the arena, play usually starts at 9.30am local time, and regularly goes on past midnight. The question to be asked there is, is that an issue of slow play or poor scheduling from the tournament organisers? When you look at Asian Tour events and they use 4 or 5 days to play the same amount of snooker and you start to wonder why that isn't possible on the European Tour. Late finishes wouldn't be such a huge talking point if one half of the draw played Last 128 and Last 64 matches on a Thursday, the other half on the Friday, and Saturday was used for Last 32 and Last 16 games with the quarter's, semi's and final on Sunday. Fans on Twitter say they enjoy a late finish, but it's incredibly tough for the players when they finish a match at midnight one day and have to come back the next morning or afternoon to do it all again. It's also often not the fault of the player that finishes latest. Mark Williams won through against Aditya Mehta in the Ruhr Open at 1.30am local time on the Friday, after spending around 4 hours waiting between matches through no fault of his own. Ironically, Mark is one of the players calling for slow play to be dealt with.

Under Section 4 of the snooker rules, Point 1 Conduct, Part A, the rule specifically states "In the event of (I) a player taking an abnormal amount of time over a stroke or the selection of a stroke...the referee shall either... (V) warn the player that in the event of any such further conduct the frame will be awarded to his opponent."

That rule to me says two things. The first of those is that this rule needs to be a lot clearer on what an "abnormal" amount of time is, in order for any referee to be in a position to enforce the law. People that know this rule exists, will believe that referee's don't think that play is slow enough to warn players. However, I believe the real issue is that because the rule is so vague, it's almost impossible to warn a player against slow play, when there is no word in the rules as to what constitutes slow play. The full definition of the word abnormal is to "deviate from what is normal or usual". So in that case, the referee's need a full understanding under the letters of the law of how long shots should take under certain circumstances, taking into account the pressure of the match situation, the type of shot being thought out, and how many different shots that are available to a player. I think that if the rule was more specific, then that would by no means be problem solved, but a step in the right direction at least.

I think this leads me on nicely to an idea that I've stolen from the rules of Golf (quite shamelessly) and believe would fit in better in snooker. Under the code of Golf Etiquette, the rules on pace of play are simple...Keep up with the group that is playing ahead of you. According to the R&A pace of play policy, there are 3 factors affecting pace of play. These are the Players, the Course (Conditions) and the overall management of play, which can be put down to how many players are playing in a group, gaps between tee off times and so on.

To translate that to snooker, there are 3 things that should be taken into account for slow play, the amount of time players are taking to play shots and complete frames of a match, the match and table conditions, looking at how much pressure is on players at high stakes points in games, and generally how easy the table conditions are for making fluent play possible, and the scheduling. In other words, if a match is expected to take X amount of hours for a maximum of Z possible frames, then if X amount of hours have passed and only Y amount of frames have been played, play is too slow and the main offending player or both players should be warned of their conduct accordingly.

I also believe this should be done on a "three strikes and your out" basis. For example, if a referee's gut instinct is telling him "Player X is taking abnormally long over shots regularly for no foreseeable reason, under the code of conduct" then he should quietly warn the player that his pace of play is too slow and he has now been "put on the clock". For those of you that have just read the word clock there and assumed I mean a loud and brash shot clock, the like of which is used in the snooker shoot-out then you are wrong. What I mean by being put on the clock is that the referee quietly times how long a player is taking over a large range of shots, whether that be between strikes of the cue ball in a break, or from getting to the table to taking the shot in a safety battle. If the referee then decides that on average he is taking an "abnormal" amount of time (something that needs to be made much less vague by the WPBSA) then a player gets a second warning. That warning should detail to the player that if he doesn't increase his average rate of play that a frame will be awarded to his opponent, as in Section 4 Point 1 of the rules that I pointed out earlier.


If that doesn't solve out slow play (which it certainly would do if players start to lose frames for being consistently slow). Then and only then would you have to look for things such as shot clocks being brought into the game. Then, the governing body would have to decide what constitutes what is an "abnormal" amount of time for a shot, set the shot clock at something that players shouldn't exceed unless there were abnormal circumstances, and give players 3 "Unlimited time" extensions per frame, so that on occasions such as being in a horrible snooker or having to think a long time about a difficult shot you have as much time as you need to think it out. What annoys a lot of people is when players average 30 seconds a shot or over that in extreme cases to play simple pots with easy to obtain position. When players take over 45 seconds to a minute to work out an easy positional shot and commit to it, they're either trying too hard or making a deliberate attempt to disrupt their opponents concentration while they are away from the table, which would be classed as unsporting behaviour.

I don't have a problem with high pressured frames lasting up to an hour because of balls running scrappy. That's the game of snooker. What I do mind is two players averaging 30 minutes and above to play every frame of snooker in a match, that's unnecessary and is killing the fluency of the game. Every player is at his best when he finds his fluency, so by encouraging faster play, we would be encouraging more fluent and therefore better snooker for players to play and spectators to watch.

If you look at the players in the top 16, they each have their individual styles, but none are deliberately slow with regularity. There are times when I've watched certain players and seen them play deliberately slowly for no reason, and the two things to notice are that: a) they can quickly get themselves in a tangle with shot selection through overthinking and b) they are not huge break builders because they appear to lack any fluency to their game.

I've seen some quite simply ridiculous comments on this subject, with certain people suggesting that if players played quicker they'd all play like "Judd Trump's and Ronnie O'Sullivan's". This couldn't be further from the truth. Players would still have their individual styles, they'd just be more conscious of the time they take to make decisions, and could very well become better decision makers because of this. The next of the ridiculous comments I have seen, is to say that people would be "rushed" into shots, which again is wrong. That would only be the case if a strict 20 second shot clock was put into place with no time extensions put in place. People also believe that this would discourage negative play and safety play, which again is wrong. One of the slowest players in the game (and I hope he doesn't mind my saying) is Peter Ebdon, and while he takes a long time to think of shots and has a quite a slow shot routine, he often thinks of incredibly attacking shots that many other players wouldn't even envision and his eye for the game is impeccable.

At the end of the day, the decision is obviously in the hands of the likes of Barry Hearn and Jason Ferguson running the sport and they have a fantastic grasp of the bigger picture for snooker. If they feel a change is necessary somewhere down the line to keep the sport in touch, then they will certainly make it without question. It would also be intriguing to see how many players on the tour would vote for a change to slow play rules and how many would not be in support of this.