As June in the snooker world really only featured the World
Cup as a full event, I have chosen to combine the Player and Moment of the
Months such was the achievements of two young men that were seen.
As China were the hosts and defending champions of the
event, they were given two teams, the first of which (as all of the other teams
were) was made up of their two highest ranked players at the time Ding Junhui
and Xiao Guodong and the second of which was made up of 17 year old Zhou
Yuelong who had already been on tour for a season, and 15 year old Yan Bingtao
who was due to have his first season on tour, though had his tour card deferred
after trouble getting a visa to play in the UK.
The pair went as China B and were put into Group D along
with England made up of the top 2 in the world Bingham and Selby, Thailand of
Dechawat Poomjaeng and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, the Republic of Ireland featuring
Fergal O’Brien and Ken Doherty and unseeded minnows of Germany and the United
Arab Emirates. It was all going to be a tough group to qualify for the
quarter-finals with only the top two going through and I believed that while
they would cause an upset or two they would probably fall short of guys like
Thailand and England. How wrong I was.
Their opening group game saw them pitted against the
Republic of Ireland team and they ran out comfortable 4-1 winners in a sign of
what was to come, as the game was sealed after the doubles in frame three
essentially when they took a 3-0 lead. Up next it didn’t get any easier as they
took on the top 2 in the world, who had been battered in their opener against
Thailand. England took the match in a deciding frame, but crucially as the
groups were about winning frames rather than matches the young pair still
picked up a couple of frames so after their win against Ireland they were still
sitting strongly.
Against the UAE they picked up the maximum of five frames in
a 5-0 whitewash which the other big teams had done a similar job of achieving. By
the time their fourth match against Thailand came around they knew that, if
they won, they would more than likely go through to the quarters with a game
against Germany to follow in their final match. Once again the match was 2-2
coming down to the final but the Chinese ran out victorious 3-2 to almost put
themselves in the quarters, a position they sealed by thrashing Germany 5-0 and
topping the group in the progress which was a fantastic achievement by the pair
with a combined age of 32.
In the quarter-finals they took on the Australians featuring
Neil Robertson who had pretty much carried his partner Vinnie Calabrese through
the group stage, as they came second in the group just about managing to hold
off Northern Ireland and Pakistan. I had a feeling the two Chinese youngsters
would win the crucial frames against Vinnie and have a good chance in the
doubles matches too if they continued on from their fantastic partnership in
the group stages, while the bookies still felt Neil could carry Australia
through. After taking an early 2-0 lead the Australians pegged them back to
2-2, but that was academic when China B took the next two to secure a 4-2 win
and advance to the semi-finals, unlike the Chinese first team in the other half
of the draw.
In the semi-finals they faced one of my hot tips to take the
title in the Welsh pair of Michael White and Mark Williams. After a re-spotted
black in frame three the match continued in a close manner going all the way to
a last frame decider, but the teenagers came through to put themselves in the
final against Scotland.
The Scottish duo of Stephen Maguire and John Higgins were my
tip to win the World Cup overall, so after beating India in a semi-final
decider of their own I thought there was every chance they would make my
prediction into reality. Zhou Yuelong and Yan Bingtao once again had other
ideas. They started off with a century and when another 50+ contribution
followed they stormed ahead 3-0. The Scots won what turned out only to be a
consolation in the fourth as the young duo soon had the match sealed with a 4-1
victory.
For the two of them the win means huge things. As well as a
big boost for their confidence levels, they earned £65,000 each with the
victory which is a huge level of financial security for the two guys so young. It
also meant qualification for the Champion of Champions in November which would
be their first major TV event in the UK, and a huge amount of experience was
there to be gained.
All considered, you have to say that the two guys Zhou and
Yan have to be considered the stand out players of June and their world cup win
is by far the biggest headline moment, and one of the greatest moments the
sport has had for promoting young talented players.
Once again, everything will be back to the conventional way tomorrow on Boxing Day with one nomination being revealed on each list as we look back on July.
No comments:
Post a Comment