Nicknamed the "City of Destiny" it could well be someone's destiny to win their very first ranking title out in Visakhapatnam. Of the players in the field there are not a whole host of big names, with only defending champion Anthony McGill in attendance of the three previous winners of the title. Of the provisional top 16 only John Higgins, Shaun Murphy, Stuart Bingham, Mark Allen and Luca Brecel are in the field this week, with Ali Carter and last year's runner-up Kyren Wilson losing in qualifying.
The tournament is played out mostly over the best-of-7 frames, with the final being upgraded to best-of-9 frames with the winner taking home £50,000, so the structure in many ways is similar to that of the Riga Masters early in the season and it is not a great surprise to see a few big names sitting it out because of that.
Quarter 1
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Anthony McGill or Aditya Mehta Vs Ashley Hugill
Rory McLeod Vs Jackson Page
Anthony Hamilton Vs Hossein Vafei
Li Hang or Srikrishna Vs Gerard Greene
Tom Ford Vs Tian Pengfei
Zhang Anda Vs Soheil Vahedi
Mark Davis or Laxman Rawat Vs Sam Baird or Lucky Vatnani
John Astley Vs Ken Doherty
The top quarter features both the defending champion and lone Indian tour player, though unfortunately for the event they were drawn to play each other in round one, which of course saw the match held over to the venue. Anthony McGill is the reigning champion, and he will be looking to get his season going after quite a quiet start so far. Aditya Mehta will be helped on by the home crowds and memories of making the final in the first staging of the event four years ago, and over the short format it will be a tough match for McGill. Jackson Page came through the qualifying rounds just over a month ago though as you would expect, his results have been hit and miss and against the more solid tactical players he has struggled, so his opener against Rory McLeod will certainly be a difficult one. Anthony Hamilton was last in action at the China Championship where he withdrew halfway his last 32 clash with Shaun Murphy, unable to cope with his back injury any longer. With tough first round opposition in Hossein Vafei, anything short of full fitness to play will probably not be enough. Hossein has impressed me greatly every time I have watched him and I think he and fellow Iranian Soheil Vahedi spur each other on greatly. Hossein is the one more likely to go on deep runs in tournaments and if he can get past Hamilton early this week he has shown enough already to be a serious contender in this section.
Ken Doherty will be hoping to continue his very impressive start to the season so far. After reaching the Riga Masters semi-finals, he then won each of his three August qualifying matches sending Hawkins and Carter packing in the process. More recently he exited both in the China Championship last 64 and Paul Hunter Classic last 32 at the hands of Murphy, who was the eventual runner-up in both tournaments. Li Hang could also be a huge danger man in the draw after narrowly missing out on making the China Championship final. He beat some top players that week and if he can carry on from where he left off in Guangzhou there is no reason why he could not make it to the semi-finals once again.
My opening quarter choice though is someone I'm really looking at to kick on this season and that is Tom Ford. Ford comes into this event from consecutive last 16's at the China Championship, where he overcame John Higgins comfortably in the last 32, and the Paul Hunter Classic. He had a similar good run of form at a similar point last season where he reached the final in Furth and then had back to back last 16's at the European Masters and English Open (losing both to Higgins). He's such a good player when he's scoring that I'm amazed that he doesn't have good runs more often and he certainly has a ranking title in him in my view. The section of the draw he is in is not exactly the toughest and if he can find his rhythm there is no reason why he cannot make it to the last 8 at the very least.
Best of the Rest: Hossein Vafei
Quarter Choice: Tom Ford
Quarter 2
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Stuart Bingham Vs Duane Jones
Matthew Selt Vs Cao Yupeng
Mark King Vs Adam Duffy
Graeme Dott Vs Jack Lisowski
Alan McManus or Malkeet Singh Vs Elliot Slessor
Joe Perry Vs Daniel Wells
Jimmy Robertson Vs Fergal O'Brien
Shaun Murphy or Pandurangaiah Vs Hammad Miah
The second quarter of the draw is one filled with a lot of experience and some high quality players. Joe Perry is far too good to be kept down for too long and so his next big run and a surge back into the top 16 may not be far away if he keeps plugging away. Stuart Bingham has not been in the best of form either, losing in the last 128 in Furth and the last 64 in Guangzhou and not having too much good to say on his performance on social media. This week could be the catalyst for a good run though, with plenty of snooker to get stuck into over the next few weeks. Fergal O'Brien recently made the quarter-finals at the China Championship which may give him a bit of extra confidence and I would favour him in what looks a tight opening round clash with Jimmy Robertson.
Meanwhile, Graeme Dott has sparked into life in the last couple of weeks and shown that there is life in the old dog yet. At the China Championships he defeated Robert Milkins and Judd Trump in two tough matches to make it to the last 16 and he comes into this fresh from a narrow quarter-final loss in the six-reds where he was on fire in the group stages with three comprehensive wins. His first round opposition here is no push over though. Jack Lisowski is quickly becoming a forgotten man though with so many other big young talents passing him by in the ranking list. Although it is early days, on the provisional end of season list he is 66th despite winning all of his August qualifiers.
However, I am sticking with the form man for my second quarter choice and that of course is Shaun Murphy. The key to this choice is purely Murphy's recent form. Making back to back finals in the same week with a days worth of travelling in between is really some effort, and even though the field in Furth was not as strong, with the standard as it is you still have to play well to beat whoever is put in front of you. Again this is not the strongest field ever this week, and on top of that we have the short format which appears to suit Murphy if you look at his European Tour record and his performance at the Paul Hunter Classic, as well as winning in Gibraltar in March. The other thing to point out here is that Murphy made the semi-finals in India last year before losing out to eventual champion McGill. Like most top players, when Murphy gets on a run of form and gets his confidence up he is very tough to stop, putting several good runs together in quick succession and usually with a trophy thrown in to the mix. Despite making back to back finals Murphy was disappointed to have not bagged a trophy and will be determined to put that right this week, and I think he has a great chance.
Meanwhile, Graeme Dott has sparked into life in the last couple of weeks and shown that there is life in the old dog yet. At the China Championships he defeated Robert Milkins and Judd Trump in two tough matches to make it to the last 16 and he comes into this fresh from a narrow quarter-final loss in the six-reds where he was on fire in the group stages with three comprehensive wins. His first round opposition here is no push over though. Jack Lisowski is quickly becoming a forgotten man though with so many other big young talents passing him by in the ranking list. Although it is early days, on the provisional end of season list he is 66th despite winning all of his August qualifiers.
However, I am sticking with the form man for my second quarter choice and that of course is Shaun Murphy. The key to this choice is purely Murphy's recent form. Making back to back finals in the same week with a days worth of travelling in between is really some effort, and even though the field in Furth was not as strong, with the standard as it is you still have to play well to beat whoever is put in front of you. Again this is not the strongest field ever this week, and on top of that we have the short format which appears to suit Murphy if you look at his European Tour record and his performance at the Paul Hunter Classic, as well as winning in Gibraltar in March. The other thing to point out here is that Murphy made the semi-finals in India last year before losing out to eventual champion McGill. Like most top players, when Murphy gets on a run of form and gets his confidence up he is very tough to stop, putting several good runs together in quick succession and usually with a trophy thrown in to the mix. Despite making back to back finals Murphy was disappointed to have not bagged a trophy and will be determined to put that right this week, and I think he has a great chance.
Best of the Rest: Graeme Dott
Quarter Choice: Shaun Murphy
Quarter 3
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Robin Hull Vs Xu Si
Josh Boileau Vs Sean O'Sullivan
Ricky Walden Vs Alfie Burden
Ben Woollaston W/O Yan Bingtao
Zhou Yuelong Vs Kurt Maflin
David Gilbert Vs Wang Yuchen
Andrew Higginson or Asutosh Padhy Vs Alexander Ursenbacher
Mark Allen Vs Niu Zhuang
Quarter number three has a similar look to the opening quarter where there are a number of experienced names lurking but not necessarily a stand-out favourite in what looks a tight section. Opportunity knocks for the top four in the section who are all well outside of the worlds current top 64, though one of them will make it to at least the last 16 this week (which is worth a valuable £6,000). Robin Hull is probably the best and most experienced of those four. He has threatened to have a big run in the last year or so with the odd good result. It was in the 2015 version of this tournament where Hull played an extraordinary match against Graeme Dott in the last 64. Between them they had nine 50+ breaks in seven frames, with Hull twice clearing up from over 50 points behind, before Dott came from 3-1 behind in the match, and 55 behind in the decider to win 4-3. Matches like that demonstrate both how good Hull can be but also some of the bad luck he has had at times in his career.
Further down we have a very intriguing tussle between Ricky Walden and Alfie Burden. Burden has won each of the last four times the two have met, including three times in the last year at 2016 European Masters qualifying, March's Gibraltar Open and the European Masters qualifying for 2017 that took place a month ago. Couple that with Walden's struggles over the last year and you could have a recipe for further success for Burden. Heavy scoring Zhou Yuelong and Kurt Maflin is another thrilling match-up. Zhou has the form having made the quarter-finals of the China Championship and beating Mark Selby along the way, and he is now starting to have a few more of these deep tournament runs to climb inside the top 32. David Gilbert could be another to watch but the big name in the bottom half of this quarter is Mark Allen. It feels like I have been saying for a long time that Allen is due a big run and another ranking title, and I would now say he is overdue some success. The signs have been there with him digging in to get victories in the August qualifiers, while also showing some very heavy scoring, that if he produced consistently this week he could blow the field away, because there are not many that can match the levels he is capable of reaching.
My choice in this quarter though is someone who also benefits from a first round walkover and that is Ben Woollaston. Woollaston is a player who has impressed me in the last month or so. I watched his qualifier for this tournament against Sam Craigie and for the most part both players could not quite get into their stride. However, from 2-2 in that match Woollaston then won 11 successive frames to close out his week in Preston, tearing Ian Burns apart 4-0 a couple of days after the Craigie win in no time at all, before then overpowering Peter Lines 5-0. In his last 64 loss at the China Championship he went down to someone playing quite well in Mark Davis, before making the quarter-finals at the Paul Hunter Classic by dropping just two frames in his opening four matches. The first round bye this week is an obvious help, as that is one tough game that he does not have to worry about, and for me he is the form horse of the players in the top half of this quarter and certainly the one that jumped at me.
Further down we have a very intriguing tussle between Ricky Walden and Alfie Burden. Burden has won each of the last four times the two have met, including three times in the last year at 2016 European Masters qualifying, March's Gibraltar Open and the European Masters qualifying for 2017 that took place a month ago. Couple that with Walden's struggles over the last year and you could have a recipe for further success for Burden. Heavy scoring Zhou Yuelong and Kurt Maflin is another thrilling match-up. Zhou has the form having made the quarter-finals of the China Championship and beating Mark Selby along the way, and he is now starting to have a few more of these deep tournament runs to climb inside the top 32. David Gilbert could be another to watch but the big name in the bottom half of this quarter is Mark Allen. It feels like I have been saying for a long time that Allen is due a big run and another ranking title, and I would now say he is overdue some success. The signs have been there with him digging in to get victories in the August qualifiers, while also showing some very heavy scoring, that if he produced consistently this week he could blow the field away, because there are not many that can match the levels he is capable of reaching.
My choice in this quarter though is someone who also benefits from a first round walkover and that is Ben Woollaston. Woollaston is a player who has impressed me in the last month or so. I watched his qualifier for this tournament against Sam Craigie and for the most part both players could not quite get into their stride. However, from 2-2 in that match Woollaston then won 11 successive frames to close out his week in Preston, tearing Ian Burns apart 4-0 a couple of days after the Craigie win in no time at all, before then overpowering Peter Lines 5-0. In his last 64 loss at the China Championship he went down to someone playing quite well in Mark Davis, before making the quarter-finals at the Paul Hunter Classic by dropping just two frames in his opening four matches. The first round bye this week is an obvious help, as that is one tough game that he does not have to worry about, and for me he is the form horse of the players in the top half of this quarter and certainly the one that jumped at me.
Best of the Rest: Mark Allen and Zhou Yuelong
Quarter Choice: Ben Woollaston
Quarter 4
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Liam Highfield Vs Boonyarit Kaettikun
Robert Milkins Vs Yu De Lu
Stephen Maguire Vs Akani Songsermsawad
Dominic Dale Vs Rod Lawler
Luca Brecel Vs Gary Wilson
Michael Holt Vs Ian Preece
Mike Dunn Vs Martin O'Donnell
John Higgins Vs Zhao Xintong
In terms of sheer quality, this bottom quarter of the draw is probably the best and most eye catching. Among those hunting glory are John Higgins who is just warming into the season and is probably more likely to peak in a couple of months with some of the big tournaments that come up in late October and November, a similar time to when he thrived last season. At his best, he is the best player in the bottom half by a country mile of anyone else, even as he reaches the back half of his career. In two visits to India Robert Milkins has had a last 16 and a quarter-final and he is the favourite out of the top four names in the draw to reach at least the last 16 again this week.
China Championship winner Luca Brecel will still be on a high from his maiden ranking success and he may still be coming to terms with his new life as a big time player who everyone wants a piece of. His first round opponent Gary Wilson is someone who I have had my eye on in recent months since his return to form having kept his tour card and qualifying for the Crucible. His heavy scoring ability is far better than his ranking may suggest and he showed some good form by making the quarter-finals in the recent Paul Hunter Classic. The name Michael Holt is one that seems to be getting mentioned a lot at the moment as the next player we think will break the door down and enter the ranking event winners club. He has not had too much to shout about at the start of this season with some tough first round draws leading to a couple of early exits.
Someone else who is long overdue another ranking title is my final quarter choice Stephen Maguire. The Scotsman is someone who I have already touted a couple of times this season but having not won a big title for as long as he has, a recent return to form is good to see and suggests he could be back in the winners circle soon. Making the quarter-finals of the World Championship seemed to be the catalyst, and I think having to go to the qualifiers to do so was perhaps the wake-up call he needed. Since then he has started the season by making the Riga Masters final, which I mentioned at the top of the preview is a similar event in format to this one, but it shows that he is still more than capable of picking up trophies. The only event he has played since was the China Championship where he started with two comprehensive victories before running into Shaun Murphy. If you don't fancy his fellow Scot Higgins this week, then the choice for me is to look to Maguire who has a draw that is easy enough but will still keep him on his toes and mean he has to play well in each round and focus. The other thing I have noticed with Maguire is that he looks like he wants to win again and with the right mentality he is an incredibly dangerous animal.
China Championship winner Luca Brecel will still be on a high from his maiden ranking success and he may still be coming to terms with his new life as a big time player who everyone wants a piece of. His first round opponent Gary Wilson is someone who I have had my eye on in recent months since his return to form having kept his tour card and qualifying for the Crucible. His heavy scoring ability is far better than his ranking may suggest and he showed some good form by making the quarter-finals in the recent Paul Hunter Classic. The name Michael Holt is one that seems to be getting mentioned a lot at the moment as the next player we think will break the door down and enter the ranking event winners club. He has not had too much to shout about at the start of this season with some tough first round draws leading to a couple of early exits.
Someone else who is long overdue another ranking title is my final quarter choice Stephen Maguire. The Scotsman is someone who I have already touted a couple of times this season but having not won a big title for as long as he has, a recent return to form is good to see and suggests he could be back in the winners circle soon. Making the quarter-finals of the World Championship seemed to be the catalyst, and I think having to go to the qualifiers to do so was perhaps the wake-up call he needed. Since then he has started the season by making the Riga Masters final, which I mentioned at the top of the preview is a similar event in format to this one, but it shows that he is still more than capable of picking up trophies. The only event he has played since was the China Championship where he started with two comprehensive victories before running into Shaun Murphy. If you don't fancy his fellow Scot Higgins this week, then the choice for me is to look to Maguire who has a draw that is easy enough but will still keep him on his toes and mean he has to play well in each round and focus. The other thing I have noticed with Maguire is that he looks like he wants to win again and with the right mentality he is an incredibly dangerous animal.
Best of the Rest: Gary Wilson
Quarter Choice: Stephen Maguire
Winner Selection: Stephen Maguire
The tournament this week is not broadcast on TV but will be on the Eurosport Player throughout the tournament from Tuesday to Saturday and it should be a very good watch. Given all the first time ranking winners of the last year or so, these are exciting times on the tour as you wonder who could be next and I hope that feeds across to the players themselves.
The tournament this week is not broadcast on TV but will be on the Eurosport Player throughout the tournament from Tuesday to Saturday and it should be a very good watch. Given all the first time ranking winners of the last year or so, these are exciting times on the tour as you wonder who could be next and I hope that feeds across to the players themselves.
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