2015. What a year it was. A lot of people say things like that at the end of a calendar but I genuinely believe this has been one of my favourite years. To say it is the best year of my life so far would be strong, there have been ups and downs in my personal life and with the blog at times.
The obvious place to start for me is by talking a bit about Shaun Murphy. Anyone that's even a casual reader of my blog will know that I am a massive fan of Shaun and someone that is very lucky to have got in touch with him through blog features and get on very well with him. Watching him lift the Masters was special as it was to see him make a third world final. I want to take this as an opportunity to thank Shaun for the support and general generosity with his time that he has once again offered myself with the blog in 2015. That has ranged from his contributions with the fun Q&A and allowing me to publish a few fun stories involving him during my previews. However, this year I have also used Shaun's help as a fellow snooker geek to throw ideas at and build some of the feature based pieces you have seen and will continue to see throughout 2016 I hope.
I also want to talk about Stuart Bingham and his achievements of 2015. I spoke on the phone with Stuart to build some of the match comments on my classic match feature very recently and to me it seemed like he was just as excitable as he was living in that moment on the night of May 4th. We all know how hard a worker Stuart is and I'd like to thank him for being a gentleman and sparing me his time to make that feature one of my favourites that I have put together.
2015 has also seen me take the opportunity to get in touch with more of the blogs readers through Twitter, and I would like to think that there are a good few more of you that I have spoken to through tweets and messages, you'll all know who you are. You all help to keep this blog going and me going with your kind words and banter that helps to keep my spirits up in the tough times.
I feel like I have gained a much greater perspective and understanding over the course of this year, and my involvement in snooker through this blog ranks clearly at number one on the list. I have often been a man to start little projects only to get bored and give up on them easily. February will mark 3 years of me writing this blog. For me that is astonishing. That is why I will be working as hard as ever to continue improving the output that comes from the blog and the mediums in which it comes out. 165 posts were written in 2015 and this will already be the fourth of 2016. I'd love to publish one a day but in the summer months when there isn't much snooker that will become tough. I think a realistic tally of posts to expect for 2016 is 300 so that tells you how hard I am wanting to work.
I would also like to offer up an opportunity to increase reader involvement. I am considering doing a survey on the third year anniversary as I look to get a grasp of what you would like to see, but I would also like to extend an offer to anyone who thinks they have something to offer the blog and would like to contribute in some way with ideas for output they would like to produce.
Predictions wise I think I did pretty well from February through to April, and after a lull at the start of the new season I ended the year on a positive note by tipping the Gibraltar Open winner. But after not doing any predictions for the year that was 2015 (and after a very unpredictable year at times I feel like that was a good decision). Having said that, I may as well have a crack at putting pen to paper on a few gut feelings I have about the snooker year for 2016.
1) Marco Fu is going to get down to the one table set-up at the Crucible. This years World Championships will mark the tenth anniversary of the only other time he has managed this and as he'll be 38 by the time the championships are played you feel he won't have too many more chances to do so. A player of his quality should certainly have won a Triple Crown event and it will be travesty in my opinion if he retires without doing so. At the back end of 2015 he was playing as well as he had done and if he carries that on he will have a great chance at the Crucible in April.
2) Ding Junhui will not be at the Crucible this year. The reality of this one is that without a good run in a ranking tournament in the next few months he is going to be struggling to hold on to his top 16 place and automatic World Championship qualification, and the way he has gone in the last season and a half I even find it tough to see him winning the three matches that would be required to qualify. He is now working with Terry Griffiths though so hopefully for him and his fans he can get out of this current slump.
3) When I tweeted about this I was asked to try and predict which qualifier will go the furthest at the Crucible. Cheers. Realistically you have to look at some of the guys in and around the twenties for inspiration as they have showed the greatest quality. If Kyren Wilson has to come through qualifying he is already a ranking event winner and will be someone none of the seeds would want to draw if they get through. Ryan Day has been threatening to get back into the top 16 for a while with some good wins and it wouldn't surprise me if he qualified and went on to reach the quarter-finals if the draw was kind. Martin Gould is the final person i'm going to pick out on this front as he had a very good year in 2015 and could still easily qualify automatically himself. If he does come through qualifying though he will be a bogey man for the seeds. Ali Carter again shouldn't be a qualifier but will likely have to go down that route to make the Crucible, but with world final appearances in his past I wouldn't want to draw him in round one if he qualifies.
4) Another person asked who I think will win the shoot-out. It really is an absolute lottery so i'm just going to pick out one guy who sort of fits the bill. He doesn't hang around, scores heavily and is lower ranked but certainly on the up and a run in the Shoot-out could be the boost he needs to take the next step. That man is Jimmy Robertson.
5) The legend that is Steve Davis tweeted me and said "I would like you to predict what you think we want to know". Well Steve I think the people will want to know who's going to win this years Triple Crown events. All i'm going to say on this is that there are three players inside of the top four in the world who are pretty much around the right ages (33, 33 and 32 respectively) to reach their peak and absolutely dominate if they keep working hard. Those guys are Neil Robertson, Shaun Murphy and Mark Selby. Selby already has three Masters, to go with his one world and one UK title, while Robertson has just won his second UK title to go with one world and masters. Shaun of course completed the triple crown with his Masters win a year ago meaning he has one of each but also narrowly missed out on a second world title in May. Each has the potential to be a triple crown winner twice over by the end of their careers and at least one of them will take the next step in 2016 with some major runs.
6) Finally, I was asked who had the best chance of winning their first ranking title. I am a little biased in saying this, but we all know the talent that Michael Holt has as well as being a hugely likeable guy. His work with Terry Griffiths in the first half of this season has already produced signs of improvement and he has been pretty unlucky at times to be beaten in both Shanghai and Daqing by the eventual tournament winner, which in a weird way is a good sign for a player.
That's all from me on my old year round up/thank you session and for my 2016 predictions and I would like to wish you all a happy new year. I hope you can all continue to support and read the blog as well as you have done in 2015 and don't forget to send me ideas for new features if you have any o general thoughts on improvement. You can interact with me on Twitter via @CueActionBlog and I will be sure to respond to any ideas or requests.
Thank you and all the best.
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