It is also the first of the ITV events this season and marks the first of three events in a row on the calendar that will be shown, at least in part, on free to air TV (the Northern Ireland Open will be shown in parts on Quest as the English Open was - prior to the UK Championship on the BBC).
The format is the same as in the three previous seasons that this has been staged with four days of "Group Action" with two best-of-7 Last 16 matches and one best-of-11 quarter-final each day from Monday to Thursday, before the best-of-11 frames semi-finals and the best-of-19 final which will be on Saturday.
The top four seeds for this week were defending champion and UK Champion Neil Robertson, World Champion Mark Selby, Masters Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan and the next highest ranked player that had qualified after the Shanghai Masters which is Shaun Murphy.
All the players this week are guaranteed £7,500 for qualifying for the tournament, one match win takes the money up to £10,000 while losing semi-finalists will receive £25,000, the runner-up £50,000 with the winner taking a nice £100,000 jackpot home with the trophy. Now let's see who the contenders are for that prize this week:
Quarter/Group 1 (Tuesday 8th November)
Neil Robertson Vs Stuart Bingham - This match up at the very top of the draw is arguably one of the hardest to call for me. With this being played on Tuesday, Stuart Bingham does not have the luxury of too much to get home from Guangzhou where he was playing in the China Championship final on Saturday evening, and may only return to the UK within 24 hours of this match beginning so could come into this match jet lagged and very tired from his exertions from the last few weeks regardless. As well as making the final last week, he was a semi-finalist the week before in Daqing and again at the English Open in Manchester so he has played a lot of snooker in the last three weeks and it is a big ask to keep it going, particularly when he has a first round match as tough as this. Neil Robertson's form has gone for a wander a little bit in the last few weeks since his 6-0 European Masters semi-final loss to Ronnie O'Sullivan. The following week in Manchester he lost 4-3 from a comfortable position at 3-0 against Xiao Guodong with a place in the Last 16 all but secured, and then as I mentioned in my China Championship preview, he seemed to lose his cool in a Last 16 defeat to Joe Perry at the International Championship before a narrow first round loss last week to Michael Holt. Coming back to Coventry as defending champion will give him good memories of a big couple of weeks a year ago when he took both the Champion of Champions title and the big one at the UK Championships in York in consecutive weeks. This year the Northern Irish Open is between the two events, but Robertson has not entered that event and seems as if he is going to concentrate solely on these two huge title defences. With this in mind, the fact you can never keep a quality player like Robertson down for long, and of course Bingham's short turnaround, then I think it will be the Australian who takes this tight match.
Prediction: Bingham's run to end with Robertson winning 4-2
Ding Junhui Vs Ali Carter - Both of these players competed at the recent China Championship which means it is a short turnaround for them having to play again on Tuesday. Ding has had longer off following his first round exit there but he looked in great form prior to that on the way to getting into the International Championship final. Just a couple of tournaments before that he was a winner at the Shanghai Masters and I would expect him to step back up in the next couple of weeks ahead of the UK Championships, after a very disappointing first round loss in the China Championships to Marco Fu. Ali Carter is always dangerous as he showed by beating Judd Trump in the China Championship and he too has been back to winning ways this season by winning the World Open to qualify for this event. In more recent weeks though Carter has had to grind out results and a couple of comebacks early on in the International Championships and English Open stopped him losing earlier than he did, and by no means did he end up going deep into the event on either of those occasions. Carter could well grind Ding down in this one if the Chinese is not on his very top scoring form, but if Ding does become the ton machine that we have seen again this season then he is the favourite.
Prediction: Ding to win a very tight contest 4-3
Quarter Choice: Neil Robertson
Quarter 2/Group 4 (Thursday 10th November)
Judd Trump Vs Anthony McGill - Judd Trump has won multiple events to qualify for the Champion of Champions this season, and is a former runner-up at this event from 2014. His form of late has been sensational with a semi-final at the International Championship, and a final at the English Open to follow his European Masters victory. A small blip at the recent China Championship by losing to Carter in round one was to be expected after such a full on run of tournaments that he featured in the latter stages of. The question is whether he has gotten back up for this event or whether his attentions have already turned to the UK Championships at the end of the month. Anthony McGill by contrast has dropped off in the last couple of weeks after a great run of form to start the season. That run of course included his Indian Open victory that got him into this event, but in the last couple of weeks he has been thrashed in the first round of the China Championship, beaten in the Last 64 of the International Championship and at the same stage of the English Open. At the end of the day it is very hard to maintain such high levels of performance throughout an entire season of snooker, and there will be peaks and troughs.
Prediction: Trump to continue his fantastic form with a 4-1 win.
Shaun Murphy Vs John Higgins - This is going to be a cracking match as last weeks China Championship winner John Higgins takes on narrow losing semi-finalist Shaun Murphy. Murphy has never won a match in this event in three attempts. The first year he lost out to Mark Selby which you take with a pinch of salt. In 2014 he played out a woeful contest with Marco Fu, Fu winning 4-1 only to lose 6-0 to O'Sullivan later that evening. The loss a year ago would be the most disappointing as he took on Yan Bingtao who at that stage was not even playing on the tour full time. Defeat to Higgins would make it four successive first round exits in this tournament and probably make Murphy never want to set foot in Coventry or the Ricoh Arena ever again. That aside, his form did really improve in the two weeks he was away in China from a point in the first round of the International Championship where he could have been swept aside by Robin Hull, to the stage by the end of the China Championships when he was make big breaks like it was nobodies business and came within a frame of the final. That final was won by Higgins who came from the other side of the draw and finished with the truest of class by knocking in three successive centuries from 7-7 to win 10-7 and he played fantastically all week long to take the £200,000 top prize home and qualify for this event. Playing on Thursday it gives Higgins plenty of time to get home and ready for this event, and at the end of the day his opponent is only an extra day ahead of him. Higgins record may not be spectacular in Coventry either but with a trophy under his belt he will just be looking to carry straight on and when Higgins gets on a roll he is very hard to stop.
Prediction: Higgins to pick up from Guangzhou winning 4-1.
Quarter Choice: Judd Trump
Quarter/Group 3 (Monday 7th November)
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Robin Hull - Here in this contest we have the lowest ranked player in the competition up against a player who is yet to lose a match in this competition having won the first two editions, before not entering last year. Long time followers of the blog will be aware that I am a big fan of Robin Hull and was so pleased to see him win the Shoot-Out in February, knowing what he has been through over the course of his career and also being aware that to someone lower down the rankings the prize money for winning that and the guaranteed prize money for getting into the Champion of Champions is huge. Hull is such a better player than his world ranking suggests and on his day he can cause the top players a lot of problems. Notable efforts for Hull this season saw him beat Mark Williams in the European Masters Last 128. For O'Sullivan he has not yet hit the heights that we would expect from him so far this season. Last 16 exits in both Chinese tournaments came with defeats to Michael Holt in each of the Shanghai Masters and International Championships. He also lost early on in the English Open, while his highlight so far has been a final appearance at the European Masters. This is a tournament that suits O'Sullivan very well though (being referred to by some as O'Sullivan's event when it was first started up) and if he were to win his matches on Monday as he should do so comfortably, he could then have three days off and come back fresh for the semi-finals on Friday and that could be a huge advantage.
Prediction: O'Sullivan to prove too strong a 4-1 winner
Martin Gould Vs Mark Davis - Martin Gould qualified for the Champion of Champions way back in February as the winner of the German Masters, but at the start of this season he has not got anywhere near those heights. His best showing has been a Last 16 way back at the Indian Open, but he lost in the Last 128 of the European Masters, Last 64 of the International and was beaten by Trump in the Last 32 of the English Open. A low point for Gould would certainly have been his 5-0 loss to Yuan Sijun in the wildcard round of the Shanghai Masters, having already lost to Yuan 5-0 in last season's China Open. Mark Davis has looked a lot more solid this season as is generally his nature. Quarter-finals at the Paul Hunter Classic and more recently in the European Masters before losing to O'Sullivan are an improvement on what was not the best of seasons a year ago. On the day this could go either way, but for me I feel that Gould will have to be on good scoring form to win. Whoever comes through would also have to be very close to their very best to beat Ronnie later on in the evening over the best-of-11 frames.
Prediction: Another match to go the distance with Davis winning 4-3
Quarter Choice: Ronnie O'Sullivan
Quarter 4/Group 2 (Wednesday 9th November)
Mark Allen Vs Joe Perry - Joe Perry is the second player in this weeks field that got in without actually having to win an event to do so. His appearance in the final of the World Open was enough to get him high enough on the money list from this season so far, that when Marco Fu withdrew his place was guaranteed whatever the result in Guangzhou. It has not been the best of seasons for Perry since that World Open performance, losing his first match at the English Open, Shanghai Masters and European Masters as well as a first round loss in last weeks China Championship to Shaun Murphy. His only recent highlight was a quarter-final at the International Championship where he also could have lost in the Last 64 (winning from 5-2 down against Andrew Higginson). Mark Allen meanwhile has looked fairly fresh this season after not starting his season until the Paul Hunter Classic, and he qualified for this event nice and early winning the Players Championship in March. Not qualifying for the International in Daqing gave him the week off prior to the China Championship and it seemed to help him. He made five century breaks in his wins over Ricky Walden and Mark Selby (which was a particularly great win given his recent form) before coming up against the better player in John Higgins. After travelling back from China the Northern Irishman should have a couple of days off before having to play in Coventry where he made it all the way to the final a year ago, despite losing in the first round of this event the two years before that. Again I can see this being close, but Allen may have the edge if he can pick up his great Guangzhou form.
Prediction: Allen to continue his heavy scoring with a 4-2 win.
Mark Selby Vs Liang Wenbo - Mark Selby has very much been the form man of the 2016/2017 season so far. He has won so many events in the qualifying period for this years Champion of Champions it is difficult to name them all. The World Championship win gets him a place as one of the four seeded players, and he adds to that another major victory at the International Championship along with title winning displays in August's Paul Hunter Classic and February's Gdynia Open. One of the few events left that Selby has not won his is this one, which should spur him on this week. His opponent Liang Wenbo will face him for the second time in three events after they met in the Last 16 of the International Championship with Selby coming out a narrow winner there. Liang has been in great form though, winning the English Open which saw him qualify for this weeks event. Over the course of the last year he has improved a lot as a player and the win in Manchester hallmarked that, but he can still be very hit and miss as he showed in the 6-2 thrashing he took last week against Stuart Bingham at the China Championship.
Prediction: Selby to march on a 4-2 winner
Quarter Choice: Mark Allen
Overall Winner Selection: Ronnie O'Sullivan
That is it for my build-up then ahead of this weeks Champion of Champions event in Coventry, next up on the calendar is the second event in the home nations series as the Northern Irish Open begins next Monday in Belfast.
Don't forget you can still read my statistical analysis ahead of the Champion of Champions here:
'Stat Attack': http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-stat-attack.html
'Tournament Top Ten': http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-tournament-top-ten.html
'Stat Attack': http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-stat-attack.html
'Tournament Top Ten': http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-tournament-top-ten.html
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