Robertson and Selby bow out at the World Grand Prix

Neil Robertson and Mark Selby were two of the players to exit at the Last 16 stage of the World Grand Prix in Llandudno yesterday. Neil was sent packing by Mark Davis after an 82 minute long decider went down to the final black as Mark came back to seal victory. Mark Selby meanwhile was outplayed in many parts of his match against Martin Gould who scored very well and played very close to his best to send the World Champion out. Ronnie O'Sullivan made it through comfortably meanwhile as he whitewashed a rather under par Robert Milkins. Judd Trump was the other winner on the televised table as he saw off Joe Perry 4-2 having been level at one stage at 2-2 with Joe. On table two, Stuart Bingham continued his good head to head record against Matt Selt, while Mark Williams came from 3-2 behind this time to keep the home hopes afloat against Ricky Walden. In the evening, Graeme Dott came through a tough decider in a tough match against Liang Wenbo, both of whom came through deciders in the Last 32. The evening ended with another top seed bowing out as Peter Ebdon produced more superb match play snooker to beat Stephen Maguire in a match that started late and finished just before midnight.

Last 16 Results:

Martin Gould 4-2 Mark Selby
Peter Ebdon 4-1 Stephen Maguire
Mark Williams 4-3 Ricky Walden
Judd Trump 4-2 Joe Perry
Mark Davis 4-3 Neil Robertson
Stuart Bingham 4-2 Matt Selt
Graeme Dott 4-3 Liang Wenbo
Ronnie O'Sullivan 4-0 Robert Milkins


That leaves a much more open draw ahead of the quarter-finals with possibly a couple of players going into the semi-finals that certainly would have been odds against to do so at the very start of the week, but as we resume for those games over the best-of-7 frames tomorrow, we will be treated to four top notch games I'm sure, all of which are on the main table now.

Quarter-Final Preview: (Picks in Bold)

Martin Gould Vs Peter Ebdon - At the very top of the draw we have a match between two players with rather contrasting styles. Martin Gould is a quick player who relies a lot more on heavy scoring, which is a particular feature of his game when he's playing well, but he can grind a frame out if he has to, though that is with much more limited success in my view. Peter Ebdon meanwhile, is one of the masters of being able to win any given match in any given way, and you will not beat Peter unless you're playing at or very close to the very top of your game. What he's managed to do against Shaun Murphy and Stephen Maguire in winning two brilliant games is to grind them down and force them into making a lot more mistakes than usual, and it could well be easy for Gould to fall into many of the same traps Peter will try and lay for him tomorrow.

Judd Trump Vs Mark Williams - These two guys have met rather frequently in recent times. At the Welsh Open they played each other in the Last 16 over the best-of-7 frames and Mark Williams came out the winner there 4-1 on a day when Judd was very much below par. A month on, the pair met again in the Last 16 of the Indian Open and again Mark came out victorious, this time 4-3 as both played snooker of a very high standard. Mark has reached the latter stages of a lot of events recently as you can tell from his victories against Judd, but you have to ask at what stage all of this will catch up with Mark this week and I have a feeling it will be in this match. He's already had to come from behind in both of his opening matches to win in deciding frames, while Judd has played some very good snooker and in doing so, has made things much easier for himself. Judd doesn't come across as the type of player that will think too much about his recent losses against Mark, but instead he'll be looking forward to playing him here and getting one back on the home favourite.

Stuart Bingham Vs Mark Davis - Stuart Bingham and Mark Davis have certainly not had to do things the easy way this week, as they get ready to meet each other in this quarter-final. Mark Davis has already beaten two top quality players in Marco Fu who he thrashed somewhat 4-1, and the third seed Neil Robertson 4-3. Mark has played some very good snooker in both of those games and seems to be coming into great form at the right time, after a whitewash against Higgins helped him to the Indian Open quarters last week. Stuart Bingham meanwhile, has struggled a bit this week since cruising into a 3-0 lead on the opening day against Anthony McGill. Anthony reeled off three scrappier frames in a row to force a decider, before Bingham came through and it was another scrappy match that he had to win in the Last 16 against Matt Selt, and he admitted on Twitter afterwards that he'll have to improve to go any further this week, especially as it's going to be very tough against Mark here.

Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Graeme Dott - Ronnie O'Sullivan was a little bit rusty in his match with Rod Lawler, but since being 2-2 in that match he's reeled off six successive frames to win that match 4-2 and beat Robert Milkins 4-0. He still doesn't seem particularly happy within himself, as he showed at the Welsh Open, but he definetly isn't in the same league here by any stretch. O'Sullivan loves these ITV events over one or two tables and in front of a big crowd in the UK, after all these are the events that he thrives on, not the PTC's or events where he feels like all of the attention is not on him because of a multi-table set-up, Although, Graeme Dott should push Ronnie much harder here than Robert did last night as he is a very solid player and won't be fazed as much by his opponent here. Graeme is certainly one of the great battlers, who believes in his ability to win a match from any position (much like Peter Ebdon). Dotty in fact is one of the most underrated players in Snooker history. We are talking about a man that has won the World Championships and appeared in two other finals at the Crucible. If Ronnie remains strong here he should win the match with Dott not producing some of the quality of those World Championships consistently for a very long time. However, if Ronnie starts to sink in his chair like he did against Lawler, Graeme will seize on that and run this out the full seven frames.


So, after the rest day for the Europa League we're now down to the business end of this tournament, with a one table set-up and a certain sprint over the next three days as these 8 remaining players are whittled down to our winner on Sunday night. I'll be back with more on Saturday morning ahead of the semi-finals.