All the talk at the start of the day was about O'Sullivan and his unbeaten start to 2016 which carried on for 3-2 wins against Matt Selt and Ali Carter, but ended when Mark Williams beat him 3-0 in the final group game. Despite that the Rocket still topped the group while Williams came in second place with four wins from five matches.
Matt Selt had wins against Stephen Maguire and Judd Trump on the second day of round robin action to secure the fourth spot in the group ahead of Ali Carter by just a one frame lost, after the players were tied on matches and frames won, after Carter suffered defeats to Trump and O'Sullivan and overcame Maguire in his final match 3-2 which did not prove enough.
Mark Selby had very little to play for coming in to the day after losing all of his first four round robin matches, but wins against Mark Williams and Judd Trump helped him to save face and avoid the wooden spoon position in the group. That 'honour' went to Stephen Maguire who beat Selby to record his only win from four on the opening day but defeats to Selt and Carter in his final two matches were no good to him and hardly a good warm up for the two tournaments he has left to play to save his top 16 seeding for the Crucible (after failing to qualify for the Players Championship finals).
What it all means is that Judd Trump has guaranteed himself a place in November's Champion of Champions and warmed himself up nicely for the defence of his World Grand Prix title starting on Tuesday, my preview for which will be up on the blog on Friday or Saturday at the very latest so keep on the look out for that.
Meanwhile, we now get to 'enjoy' four days off from action on the snooker tour of some sort, the first time off since Monday 8th February, the day between the German Masters and China Open qualifiers, which seems like another lifetime ago.
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