The defending champion is of course Neil Robertson, but can he defend his crown? Well there are a lot of players that will have a say about that including Ronnie O'Sullivan, Mark Selby, Ding Junhui, Judd Trump and Shaun Murphy to name just a few. It's going to be a hugely competitive tournament as always and I can certainly see plenty of surprises coming our way over the next couple of weeks.
Now it's time for me to take a look at the draw and determine where these shocks will come from:
Quarter 1
Last 128 Draw: (Picks in bold)Neil Robertson Vs Joe O'Connor
Kyren Wilson Vs Gary Wilson
Kurt Maflin Vs Chris Norbury
Peter Ebdon Vs Ross Muir
Robert Milkins Vs Michael Leslie
Marcus Campbell Vs Scott Donaldson
Graeme Dott Vs Alexander Ursenbacher
Anthony Hamilton Vs Craig Steadman
Tom Ford Vs Barry Pinches
Alan McManus Vs Joel Walker
Alfie Burden Vs Chris Wakelin
Stuart Bingham Vs Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon
Ken Doherty Vs Mitchell Mann
Michael White Vs Cao Xin Long
Robbie Williams Vs Sam Baird
Ricky Walden Vs Steve Davis
Neil Robertson as the defending champion in York will be motivated to try and defend his title with victory again in a couple of weeks time, but as you'd expect that is a very tough ask. Neil is coming back into some of his better form in the last month though, but he's still not quite at his best. Making the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions took a big effort against Ricky Walden in the group finals, while to get into the Ruhr Open quarter-finals last weekend he didn't really have to play his best snooker. I still think he'll make the latter stages in York, but for me he's not in the form right now to defend his title.
Stuart Bingham has played some very good snooker at times this season and will surely be feeding off memories of his run to the semi-finals of this event last season. Stuart won the Shanghai Masters earlier in the season and has followed this up with yet another Asian Tour title. When he's on top of his game Stuart is always a tough opponent and a big title contender and I think eventually he will win a big ranking title in the UK which is the only thing missing from his CV.
Ricky Walden is in a similar boat to Stuart Bingham in that he's just a big UK ranking title away from a near complete CV, especially after winning his 3rd ranking title in Asia earlier this month at the International Championships in Chengdu. Ricky is a fine player when he's at the top of his game which he certainly was in Chengdu when I was thrilled to see him take such a big title. Having made the UK Championship semi-finals in both 2011 and 2013 he knows what it takes to have a brilliant run in a UK event and as a former World Championship semi-finalist he certainly has the credentials to go on a win a BBC major very soon.
Quarter Winner: Neil Robertson
Quarter 2
Last 128 Draw: (Picks in bold)Barry Hawkins Vs Ashley Carty
Nigel Bond Vs Stuart Carrington
Fergal O'Brien Vs Igor Figueiredo
Anthony McGill Vs Michael Georgiou
John Higgins Vs Lee Walker
Jamie Cope Vs John Astley
Matthew Stevens Vs Allan Taylor
Gerard Greene Vs Vinnie Calabrese
Matt Selt Vs Hammad Miah
Xiao Guodong Vs Ian Glover
Rory McLeod Vs Ian Burns
Ali Carter Vs Zhang Anda
Ben Woollaston Vs Michael Wasley
Dominic Dale Vs Tony Drago
Peter Lines Vs Joe Swail
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Daniel Wells
Ronnie O'Sullivan seemed to be in unbeatable form on his way to winning the Champion of Champions earlier this month. When he is in that kind of form no-one will be able to beat him, which makes him a very dangerous prospect and a clear favourite for the tournament. Ronnie always brings his best to these tournaments in the UK and when he's motivated (which you can guarantee he will be this week) he's going to be a very tough man to overcome and it will take some flawless snooker from someone else to stop him.
Barry Hawkins has been struggling for form of late with early exits in a lot of events since the early stages of this season. He bowed out in the Last 32 of the Shanghai Masters and the International Championships both to Mark Williams. He also exited at the Last 128 stage last weekend in Germany to Craig Steadman and doesn't seem to be in any kind of form coming into this event. On his day he's always a tough player to beat, but he needs to find some form or some inspiration or looking at the other guys in this section he could well face another early exit.
Ali Carter will be playing his first ranking event this week for 11 months having last competed in a ranking event at the World Championships. He has competed though this season, fairly recently since his battle with lung cancer, winning the General Cup in Hong Kong (an invitational event) and he also got invited to the Champion of Champions where he suffered a first round exit to Neil Robertson, though Carter said that he was happy just to be back competing after his toughest battles yet and we were all happy as snooker fans to see him back out on the green baize. Ali will not just want to be showing up this week, having been working hard he'll want to have a good run in York this week like all of the other top players, and although tournament victories may be a long way off for Carter, a run to even the Last 16 would do his confidence plenty of good.
Quarter Winner: Ronnie O'Sullivan
Quarter 3
Last 128 Draw: (Picks in bold)Ding Junhui Vs John Sutton
Jimmy White Vs Dave Harold
Mark King Vs James Cahill
Andrew Higginson Vs Tian Pengfei
Joe Perry W/O Liu Chuang
Mike Dunn Vs Andrew Pagett
Mark Davis Vs Jak Jones
Jamie Jones Vs Liam Highfield
Jamie Burnett Vs Fraser Patrick
Ryan Day Vs Lu Chenwei
Aditya Mehta Vs Alex Davies
Judd Trump W/O Rouzi Maimaiti
Rod Lawler Vs Alex Borg
Martin Gould Vs Lee Page
Luca Brecel Vs Noppon Saengkham
Mark Allen Vs Eden Sharav
Ding Junhui comes into this event having had several long waits between tournaments and I'm still trying to work out whether that is good news for him or not. The truth is, it all depends how much work he's been putting in on the practice table. If he's been putting the hours in I'm sure he'll be a top contender for the title in the next couple of weeks. What worries me with Ding is that he admitted after his first round Masters exit to Shaun Murphy in January that he hadn't been putting the work in, and I thought before the start of that tournament that he wouldn't have been working hard over Christmas which is a major worry for him. What it could demonstrate is a lack of motivation to improve as a snooker player and continue to win these big events in the UK.
Judd Trump comes into the UK Championships in top form having made the final of the Champion of Champions earlier this month, while last weekend he made the semi-finals of the Ruhr Open (where he led 3-0 until a classic Shaun Murphy comeback saw him off) and he appears to be back playing some of his very best snooker, the sort of snooker he played when he made his breakthrough in 2011. If he can continue to play this sort of snooker again he'll be pretty unstoppable and certainly a dangerous player to deal with. A bet on Judd to win one of the majors this season will probably bring some returns.
Mark Allen as a runner-up in 2011 and a quarter-finalist in this event last season is a very strong contender to do well again here after the season he's had so far. Mark was the runner-up at both the Shanghai Masters and the International Championships as well as making the final of the first Euro Tour event in Riga and winning the Paul Hunter Classic which was the second ET of the season. He may have a very tough quarter here but if he can produce some of this early season form in York he's well capable of coming through and making it into the latter stages.
Quarter Winner: Judd Trump
Quarter 4
Last 128 Draw: (Picks in bold)Shaun Murphy Vs James Wattana
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Vs Robin Hull
Jack Lisowski Vs Chris Melling
Liang Wenbo Vs David Grace
Marco Fu Vs Ahmed Saif
Cao Yupeng Vs Lu Haotian
Michael Holt Vs Zak Surety
Dechawat Poomjaeng Vs Andrew Norman
Jimmy Robertson Vs Zhou Yuelong
Mark Williams Vs Steven Hallworth
Yu De Lu Vs Oliver Lines
Stephen Maguire Vs Lu Ning
David Gilbert Vs Elliot Slessor
Mark Joyce Vs Ratchayothin Yotharuck
David Morris Vs Li Hang
Mark Selby Vs Oli Brown
Shaun Murphy comes into the UK Championships as the man in form right now after winning the Ruhr Open last weekend to win back to back European Tour events. He won the event in Germany beating Robert Milkins in the final making a maximum in the second frame of that match, having already missed 2 opportunities on the final colours earlier on the final Sunday, as well as several other attempts if his account of things is anything to go by. What's his recent success down to? A lot of hard work on the practice table, particularly last week with his coach Chris Henry. When he's on fire Shaun is a very hard player to put out, and if he can sustain his good form for a full week rather than just a weekend, which is all that is required at the European Tour events, he will be one of the main contenders for the title this year. In my view Shaun is bound to win another of the BBC majors again very soon, whether it will be this week is another question entirely.
Mark Williams has been in pretty good form coming into this event, and I consider him to be very much a strong dark horse for the title this week. He comes into York with a run to the semi-finals of the International Championship in late October, while last weekend he made the quarter-finals of the Ruhr Open before running into the steam train that was Shaun Murphy. After some hard work both on and off of the table it seems like Mark Williams is well and truly back close to playing his best snooker, and we all know how dangerous he can be on his day. I dare say the bookies will have some good odds on him to win this event so a bet on him to make the final at least might not be far off.
Mark Selby is a man that comes into this event as a new father with his wife giving birth to their first child Sofia Maria Selby just a couple of weeks ago which is always going to make practice and preparation tough ahead of this event. Mark's form has been hot and cold since he won the World Title in May and he's not really had much to shout about on the table in the last couple of months. With his gritty nature, Mark is always a strong contender for every event he enters, though with all of these things going on in his personal life it's hard to say how he will come into this tournament and he has a lot of tough players standing between him and a way out of this quarter and into the semi-finals.
Quarter Winner: Shaun Murphy
Tournament Runner-Up: Judd Trump
Tournament Winner: Ronnie O'Sullivan
Whatever happens over the next couple of weeks it will be great to watch the first major of the season play out and whoever the winner if I'm sure they'll be a worthy one. Now it's time to sit back, relax and enjoy some quality snooker. I'll be back on Friday to have a look ahead to the Last 64 matches in York.
No comments:
Post a Comment