Ronnie O'Sullivan will face a repeat of last year's Champion of Champions final when he takes on Shaun Murphy in Friday night's semi-final, after coming through the second day's play in Coventry with wins over Stuart Bingham and John Higgins.
It will be a third final repeat out of three games for O'Sullivan who made it three wins out of three against Bingham in this tournament, having previously defeated him in the 2013 final and the first round the following year, while John Higgins overcame O'Sullivan to win the title back in 2016, but could not get the better of him on this occasion.
After losing the opening frame to English Open champion Bingham, on Tuesday afternoon, the two-time Champion of Champions winner sparked into life with consecutive tons to take the lead. Those breaks of 109 and 116 were excellent after a couple of early mistakes, but Bingham was not fazed and soon had the scores level again with a contribution of 56 in the fourth.
He was unable to contain the Rocket much further though as he fired into the quarter-finals with breaks 68 and 60 in frames five and six to seal a 4-2 victory.
The second first round tie on the day saw Welsh Open champion Higgins battle hard to defeat Gibraltar Open winner Ryan Day. The Welshman took the opening frame with a break of 69, before Higgins hit back with his own back-to-back tons to mirror O'Sullivan in the first match. Those breaks of 106 and 100 put the Scotsman 2-1 ahead but he was soon 3-2 in what was very much a one visit contest.
Day rattled off breaks of 56 and 106 to move 3-2 up and one away from the quarter-finals. He had his chances in a scrappy sixth frame but in trademark style, it was Higgins who was stronger and was able to force the seventh and deciding frame. Again, Day had early chances but once Higgins was in he always looked like being the man to get over the line, and his decisive break of 66 booked a date with O'Sullivan.
The evening's quarter-final perfectly mirrored the frame-by-frame progress of Shaun Murphy's victory over Ding Junhui a night earlier. O'Sullivan surged into an early 2-0 lead after breaks of 57 and 109, only for Higgins to hit back with three on the spin. A run of 91 got him on the board, before he made a crucial clearance in the fourth to square the match at 2-2 at the interval. O'Sullivan had been in first and made a break of 59, but the counter clearance of 70 from Higgins drew him level.
A break of 83 after the mid-session break put Higgins 3-2 ahead, but he would only score a further 10 points in the match thereafter as O'Sullivan found top gear. The break of 101 in the sixth was a signal of things to come as he then went up a level in the seventh with a magnificent run of 137 to move ahead at 4-3. A couple of visits were needed in the eighth but he was now keeping the Scotsman at arms length and leading 5-3, one away from the semi-finals. There was no slowing up as he reached the line though, with his third century in four frames and sixth ton of the day putting the icing on a great day's work for O'Sullivan, finishing with a 114.
With the top half of the draw complete now until Friday night when O'Sullivan will meet defending champion Murphy, attention now turns to the bottom half.
Day 3 Preview
First round draw:
Mark Williams Vs Kyren Wilson
Judd Trump Vs Luca Brecel
The third day of Champion of Champions action features two players facing off in round one who have not won a title in the year since last year's Coventry showdown. Judd Trump and Luca Brecel will meet in the first round for a second year in a row in round one, with Brecel impressively whitewashing Trump 12 months ago. This was arguably the last tournament that Brecel played like a top 16 player, as he then defeated Mark Selby before narrowly losing in the semi-final to Murphy. In 2018 he has failed to register a ranking event quarter-final, let alone a tournament win and yet he is still ranked high enough to be the fourth and final invitation to the tournament based on the world rankings.
Trump was also invited on his world ranking, but he has been closer to victory than Brecel in the last 12 months. First of all he reached the Shanghai Masters final a week after events in Coventry, though he has not been in a final since then, losing at the semi-final stage of the Scottish Open, the Masters, the German Masters and March's Players Championship. Based on the two players form this season, it looks as if Trump is starting to build towards something good, though this week will be a better indicator of that against a field of top opposition. As for Brecel, he looks miles away from his best right now, but memories of last year's thrashing of Trump may give him the boost he needs.
The opening match on Wednesday sees the entrance of World Champion Mark Williams to the competition as he faces Paul Hunter Classic champion Kyren Wilson. If you remove matches from the Six-Reds World Championship and Championship League from the head-to-head then the three major meetings between these two have all ended in victories for Wilson, at the 2016 Northern Ireland Open quarter-final, the 2017 World Open quarter-final and a 6-1 thrashing in this year's Masters quarter-final. Both players have already won ranking titles in the early season to back up excellent season's that they had last campaign, but have struggled for form in the last few tournaments.
At the English Open, Wilson lost in the last 128 from 3-1 up to Akani Songsermsawad while Williams looked to really be struggling when he lost in the last 32 4-3 to Zhou Yuelong. Roles were reversed at the International Championship with both losing in the last 64, Williams this time 6-3 to Akani while Wilson lost to a young Chinese prospect, 6-2 against Yuan Sijun. This makes this contest a tight one to call, with not much between them in the form guide, the head-to-head favouring Wilson but only over a small sample size and over the best-of-7 frames either player could get on a run and win in no time.
Looking slightly further to the Group final, should Trump make the group final it brings up two interesting potential head-to-heads against Wilson and Williams. Firstly, Trump and Williams have have met eight times since the start of 2015, with five of those meetings coming that year alone. Those eight have been shared, but Trump was on a three game win streak against the Welshman before he defeated his fellow left-hander 6-1 in the semi-finals of the German Masters.
Meanwhile, Wilson has a winning head-to-head over Trump as well as Williams, with Wilson leading 5-3 overall, though two of Trump's victories were before Wilson's big breakthrough. That came when Wilson beat Trump in the 2015 Shanghai Masters final and since then he has added a victory over Trump in this competition, along with three wins against him this year at the Shanghai Masters, Romanian Masters and most famously from 5-2 down in the semi-finals of the Masters in January.
So whatever happens today, there are some fascinating matches in store as we will discover our third Champion of Champions semi-finalist.
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