Williams of course struggled to even get into group 4, finishing fifth in group 3 and just avoiding relegation by two frames of Joe Perry. Since then the Welshman has not looked back. On the opening day of the group he took four wins from his four matches played and that 100% record continued into the second day of the group after he came back from 2-0 down to beat Ricky Walden, after Walden missed a relatively easy red when in to win the match 3-0. The very final round robin match between Mark and Neil Robertson was a dead rubber, and despite leading 2-0, he went on to lose 3-2 to the Australian.
Elsewhere in the round robin stages Ben Woollaston was only able to win two frames in three matches on the second day of the group as he ended up finishing rock bottom and getting relegated, while Michael White will now rue the traffic that caused him to get docked the first two frames of his match on Wednesday evening against Ricky Walden. Walden went on to win the only frame actually contested, securing a vital 3-0 win. In the end Michael did managed two wins on the second day of the group, beating Woollaston 3-1 earlier in the day, but when Ricky Walden beat Ben by the same score, White's final match with Dott became irrelevant as he couldn't possibly match Walden's frames won total if he was able to join him on two points.
The fact that White won that match was of no consequence to Graeme Dott either, as his place in the semi-finals was already secured after a win against Mark Selby 3-2 earlier in the day, to go with the two wins he collected from his four matches on Wednesday. Selby's job was all but done after he beat Neil Robertson 3-1 earlier on, as his final match with Woollaston in which the Jester blitzed to a 3-0 win became a dead rubber. Robertson was still able to secure his semi-final qualification with a 3-1 win over Michael White in the middle of the day, but by only finishing third he was forced to play Mark Selby for the second time today when the knock-out phase came around.
Selby dominated the match and continued scoring well, and repeated the dose of their earlier match (which did feature 2 centuries for Mark) winning 3-1 to put himself in the final.
It wasn't such plain sailing for Mark Williams in the last 4 however. By topping the table in the round robin stages he played Graeme Dott and lost the opening two frames of the match. That was before a 129 helped him to winning the final three frames and the match, 3-2 to book his place in the final.
The intentions of the two time world champion were set out early on, starting with a 131 break to take the opening frame and Selby could put up little resistance to his opponents dominant play after that as Williams completed a 3-0 victory to join Ronnie O'Sullivan, Judd Trump and Stephen Maguire in qualifying for the winners group with three groups still remaining.
Overall, it was an unlucky week for Selby as he was narrowly defeated in the Group 3 final before losing out to Williams in the final of Group 4 and he will now have to come back and do it all again when the Championship League returns for Group 5. Graeme Dott, Neil Robertson and Ricky Walden will also move along to group 5 and Williams win in the group 4 final means that Ricky Walden will be the only person in group 5 to have played in every single group so far.
The other three players scheduled to join the competition at this stage are David Gilbert, Mark Davis and Kyren Wilson and this will take place over the course of Monday February 22nd and Tuesday February 23rd after the Welsh Open.
Next up on the calendar is the World Seniors Championship on Saturday and Sunday at the Preston Guildhall, with the defending champion of course being... Mark Williams. Then there are another couple of days off before the German Masters begins in Berlin on Wednesday and my preview of all of this will be up on the blog on Friday.
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