Walden and Trump set for Beijing battle

Ricky Walden and Judd Trump will contest the final of the China Open on Sunday after coming through today's semi-finals, with varying degrees of difficulty.

First up, it was Walden who overcame John Higgins in a deciding frame of a match he was always the better player in. Breaks of 66, 82 and 113 helped put the Players Championship runner-up 3-2 in front man. In the sixth Higgins was first in, but Walden had the chance to steal until a big bounce on the green left him out of position on the brown, which he missed and left Higgins to level. He soon recovered from that and a fantastic 96 put him 5-3 ahead and one away from victory. Higgins stayed in it with a 99 and forced a decider after Walden went in-off in a safety battle on the final black. John Higgins had a shot at a long red in the decider but missed and left one for Walden who knocked it in and made a superb 131 break to win the match 6-5.

The second semi-final was much more clear cut as a frustrated Stephen Maguire found himself unable to get into the match. In the end, despite his opponent having several chances to avoid it, Judd Trump whitewashed Stephen Maguire 6-0, helped by breaks of 100 in the opener and a 90 in frame four but also a large amount of luck and some errors from Maguire.

Final Preview:

Judd Trump Vs Ricky Walden - The final two this week, in the final ranking event before the World Championships sees Judd Trump and Ricky Walden lock horns. Walden has been brilliant over the last couple of weeks and I cannot stress enough how big his achievements have been. To get into one ranking final is hard enough but to get into two in the space of two weeks, on opposite sides of the world is phenomenal. After a poor season he is now back to his very best and scoring for fun to see of brilliant opponents like Higgins and Pengfei in a decider sandwiching a comfortable victory against the world champion, while three frames on the spin from 3-2 down saw him beat Ryan Day in the Last 32 after a Last 64 walkover.

Trump also had a walkover in the Last 64, so neither has an advantage despite playing a game less than they were scheduled to. Trump was brilliant at the start of the week against Jimmy Robertson and Marco Fu but since then he has come through a couple of matches where he has offered chances to his opponents in Mark King and Stephen Maguire and neither were able to capitalise. This is also his second ranking final, though his first was all the way back in September when he lost 10-9 to Kyren Wilson in Shanghai. Both players are more than capable in the changeable Chinese playing conditions, with all of Walden's three ranking titles coming in China though if he were to win this one it would almost complete the set of Chinese majors. Trump was the winner in 2011 when he hit the big time. I think Walden has a little bit of an edge here though, his scoring this week in Beijing and last week in Manchester has been magnificent and these runs have left him full of confidence, and today against Higgins he seemed to have the Scots number in the safety exchanges and not many players do that to him. Judd Trump will certainly need to be at his best to win this one.

Prediction: Walden to win 10-8


There is of course a quick footnote to be made regarding the World Championship Qualifiers. The draw for that after a good week in Beijing will be made live on the World Snooker YouTube channel at 11am UK time as was confirmed today on the World Snooker Twitter page. That is the next stop for us all and I will have my preview out for that after I have analysed Monday's draw.