Starting the day off we saw two more top 16 players exit the competition. First off it was Marco Fu who was beaten (in one of the predictions I was successful in making) by Kurt Maflin with both players making centuries in the match. Then Mark Allen was beaten by his bogey player and overall nemesis (particularly if you follow The Pistol on Twitter) Mark Joyce for the second time this season, 5-2 on this occasion. Elsewhere, on the televised table, Luca Brecel beat young Zhao Xintong in a match that was littered with both big breaks and some easy misses.
The afternoon session was the afternoon of the decider, with three of the five games going to the ninth and final frame. Before all of that, Ryan Day was able to avenge his quarter-final defeat to Liang Wenbo from a year ago by winning their first round match 5-3. On the TV table world champion Stuart Bingham won the last two frames of the match on the black to win what was a much tighter match than the score suggests at 5-2. The first decider came in the match with Michael Holt and Ian Burns. Holt had led 2-0 before being pegged back to 2-2, but then Holt went back ahead 4-2 before Burns pegged him back again to 4-4. Luckily for the Hitman though he dominated the decider to book his place in round two. He will now play Kyren Wilson who came back to beat Rory McLeod. McLeod was in a strong position at 4-1 but once again he failed to close out the match (as has become a theme at times for the cloud this season) and Kyren comfortably took the final four frames for a 5-4 win. Finally, Stuart Carrington also surrendered a heavy lead losing four frames in a row from 3-0 ahead to trail Mark King 4-3. Somehow Carrington managed to recover and force a deciding frame, but after chances for both players it was King who sealed victory.
Bottom half Last 32 Results:
Luca Brecel 5-2 Zhao Xintong
Kurt Maflin 5-1 Marco Fu
Mark Joyce 5-2 Mark Allen
Mark King 5-4 Stuart Carrington
Michael Holt 5-4 Ian Burns
Kyren Wilson 5-4 Rory McLeod
Ryan Day 5-3 Liang Wenbo
Stuart Bingham 5-2 Fergal O'Brien
This evening we saw the top half of the draw battle out their last 16 matches and once more a couple of high seeded players fell. First off though Judd Trump made three centuries in the final three frames of his match with Zhang Anda, the last of which was a 120 on a maximum attempt before he snookered himself on the yellow. Trump will now play Martin Gould who was a much comfortable winner compared to his 5-4 win against Mark Williams on Wednesday night, as Ben Woollaston failed to reproduce the goods that saw him beat Shaun Murphy in round one.
In the top quarter it was a different story with Graeme Dott first beating Masters runner-up Barry Hawkins 5-3 in what was a quality contest, while on the TV table defending champion Mark Selby was beaten by another Scot in Stephen Maguire by the same scoreline after having a golden chance to make it 3-1 at the interval which he failed to take.
Bottom Half Last 16 Preview: (Picks in Bold)
Luca Brecel Vs Kurt Maflin - This half of the draw is a massive opportunity for someone to breakthrough, but particularly in this quarter with one of Brecel, Maflin, King or Joyce going through to the semi-finals at the end of tomorrow. Starting with Maflin, he seemed to play well against an under par Fu. Making reference back to something I said in my pre-tournament preview, Maflin always seems to have one strong spell a season and that this could be it. Well, after today there is no reason that that should not be a possibility. Luca Brecel played very well in patches against Zhao Xintong on the TV table but the good breaks were followed by a few elementary mistakes and that still seems to be a part of the Belgian's game. If he doesn't improve tomorrow then I think Kurt will seize the opportunities presented to him, though this match could go all the way.Mark King Vs Mark Joyce - With how much is at stake in this match I expect it to be quite a tactical and tense affair throughout. Joyce has obviously had a massive issue of bottle this season against Poomjaeng at the UK's, while King lacks nothing in the nerve department. His performance against Carrington today was very gritty and determined and that is what he'll need more of here. Joyce meanwhile seemed to have Allen on the rack before a ball was struck because the Northern Irishman appears to have something with Joyce that causes him to struggle against him so much. All in all I think this too could go the full nine frames but I fancy King to steal it.
Kyren Wilson Vs Michael Holt - This is yet another tough match to call as both players fell over the line in round one. Wilson is lucky just to be here after finding himself 4-1 down to McLeod and to be fair neither player scored that well so you have to wonder how McLeod got that far in front only to throw it all away. Michael Holt meanwhile has been knocking on the door all year with his regular last 16 appearances and it is about time that he kicked on. He usually does well too in Germany so this could be a massive opportunity for him if he can get the better of Wilson. But as we've seen from Kyren and his form this season that won't be easy and if he can find his heavy scoring it will be an uphill task for the Nottingham Potter.
Stuart Bingham Vs Ryan Day - The final last 16 match is set to be as close as the other three tomorrow. Bingham could've been pulled in a lot closer by Fergal if he had taken his chances after Bingham missed quite a lot of balls in the same way which could be a minor technical issue that needs working on. He wasn't quite at his best and is well aware of how good Day is on his day and once again all of the pressure is on the world champion to produce on TV again. The Welshman meanwhile scored a nice revenge win against Liang Wenbo who beat him in the quarter's here a year ago. In fact, Day has a nice record here in Germany with a semi-final appearance two years ago also, while Stuart has never been past this stage so this could be a big chance for Ryan to go on.
That's the afternoon session at 1pm, while in the evening at 7pm we have the four quarter-finals.
Obviously at this point we only know the two in the top half but I will try to update the post after the afternoon matches to preview the other two quarter-finals
EDIT: An interesting afternoon has been completed at the Tempodrome in Berlin and one in which the world champion Stuart Bingham has been sent packing. After going 2-0 in front again and looking pretty comfortable Ryan Day was able to stick in there as Bingham went off the boil. He pegged it back to 2-2 at the interval and made it 3-3 after Stuart won the first after the break, and at that stage the Welshman's highest break was only 38. However, two good breaks in the last two frames saw him over the line for a 5-3 victory.
Meanwhile on the outside tables, Luca Brecel won a fluent affair with Kurt Maflin. The Norwegian had runs of 90, 75 and 55 in the first four frames but Luca battled hard in frame four to make sure it was only 2-2 at the break. 60+ breaks were swapped in the next two frames to make it 3-3 but the key frame was the seventh, by far the longest of the match and when that fell to the Belgian he was able to follow that with a 72 break to secure victory.
Luca will now play Mark Joyce, who made two centuries in his victory over Mark King. King won a tight opener but runs of 64 and 59 gave Joyce the next two before an 83 from King squared the match at the break. After that though Allen's conqueror was ruthless as King only scored another 28 points in the match with Joyce having runs of 104 and 105.
In the final match of the afternoon, Michael Holt and Kyren Wilson played out an incredibly lengthy affair. Kyren Wilson eventually went on to win it in a deciding frame needing three chances in that frame to do so and having plenty of luck along the way. The eighth frame was certainly an interesting one after Wilson twice needed snookers and got them on both occasions but still ended up losing the frame, but Holt was unlucky in the decider when his chance game and it is the Shanghai Masters champion who rolls on.
Bottom Half Last 16 Results:
Luca Brecel 5-3 Kurt Maflin
Mark Joyce 5-2 Mark King
Kyren Wilson 5-4 Michael Holt
Ryan Day 5-3 Stuart Bingham
Quarter-Finals Preview: (Picks in Bold)
Stephen Maguire Vs Graeme Dott - Stephen Maguire was superb tonight against Mark Selby and was continuing to cue well after his showings last week at the Championship League and his temperament and patience were particularly good as those are two key aspects of the game that need to be in a good place against Selby, as they will against Dott. The two players know each other well and of course Dott has found some form in the last week as he knocked in some good breaks against Hawkins as he did in round one against Pengfei. The way the week has gone though you have to make Stephen the favourite in what could be another close match.Judd Trump Vs Martin Gould - Judd Trump is absolutely flying this week. Three centuries against Zhang Anda demonstrated that he is at the top of his game once again but he will need to keep that going and show some consistency against Martin Gould as he could be tested. Martin has gone along nicely by beating Mark Williams and then thrashing Ben Woollaston who beat Murphy in round one, scoring nicely along the way. Gould has had a much more consistent year after reach the semi-finals of the Grand Prix (losing from 5-1 up against Trump) and then getting to the final in Australia and his obvious incentive is how close he is getting to making the top 16 for the world championships at the end of the season. At times though when he has sensed an opportunity like in the Grand Prix last March or December's UK quarter-final against David Grace, big leads have been thrown away and that is why you have to make the form man Trump favourite here.
Luca Brecel Vs Mark Joyce - With Bingham exiting this afternoon this is now a huge half of the draw. Neither Brecel or Joyce has ever been to a ranking final but by winning this match they will be through to the best-of-11 semi-finals tomorrow with an opportunity to do that. Both guys were class this afternoon and they didn't waste much time in getting through which bodes well for these matches. Mark has played well this week but it will be interesting to see if he can keep that up with so much at stake as this is more unknown territory for him in a tournament despite what the age difference might suggest. Luca though has been knocking on the door for sometime after qualifying for the Crucible and making the UK quarter-finals in 2012 and it's nearly a year since he made the semi-finals of the Welsh Open. As I said in my preview I believe he has developed a little more consistency into his game over the last year and I would fancy him to hold his nerve more than Joyce if this one goes close. This match may just come down to some of the silly mistakes that Luca tends to make at times, because if he can limit that tonight then he has a massive opportunity.
Ryan Day Vs Kyren Wilson - Both players in this match have not had long between games to re-charge the batteries and get ready for an assault on this quarter-final, but Day has certainly had the most time out of the two. His victory over Stuart Bingham was workmanlike as he managed to hold on in the opening half to the point where at 3-3 he was yet to make a break of more than 38. In the last two frames when the opportunity came though he showed once more what he is made of, and the opportunity has certainly knocked in this half of the draw. The Welshman is one of the players who probably should have had a ranking title to his name given his opportunities and the talent we know he possesses. He is more than adept at playing in the Tempodrome arena as he has now made at least the quarter-finals in all of the last three German Masters, with his best being a deciding frame loss in the 2014 semi-final to eventual champion Ding Junhui. Kyren Wilson meanwhile only has around an hour and a half between matches here after a huge battle with Michael Holt which went all the way down to the final frame. There weren't many big breaks from Kyren, just like his first round match with Rory McLeod which went to a decider also. It must have taken a lot out of Kyren but with the element of youth on his side he'll still be giving it his best shot in this match, but if it does run close you do have to wonder how many more matches and frames Wilson can grind out.
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