Still under the old contract this is now one of the rare events that sees the top 16 seeds enter the draw at the Last 32 stage after everyone else has played in the qualifying stages. 11 of the 16 qualifiers that came through were ranked between 17 and 32, meaning they only had to play one qualifying match, whilst the likes of Kurt Maflin, Jamie Jones and Stuart Carrington had to play three qualifiers and Scott Donaldson and Mei Xi Wen came through four games.
One of the downsides to the old system however is the addition to the draw of eight Chinese wildcard players, instead of the four wildcards that we have become accustomed to for the other Chinese events on the calendar. It all seems very strange that large amounts of wildcards are required to boost one of the strongest fields we will see all season but that's the way the contract works.
Looking at the Eurosport TV schedules, it looks like they are going to screen all of this event on the TV. There have been teething problems with the new Eurosport deal that oddly saw the Paul Hunter Classic confined to the Eurosport Player. Meanwhile, in previous years Eurosport have showed the first six days of the tournament and then neglected to show the final leaving many dissatisfied fans in their wake.
The good news for this event is that Ronnie O'Sullivan has decided to enter and start his season slightly earlier than we would all have expected. You have to say that the event will get more coverage than it would have done as a result. He could certainly have some interesting games if he is to go far in a star-studded draw.
Quarter 1
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Kyren Wilson Vs Michael Holt/Xu Si
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Liang Wenbo/Hu Hao
Ding Junhui Vs Scott Donaldson
Mark Allen Vs Anthony McGill/Chen Zifan
This has to be the toughest quarter in what is a very tough draw from top to bottom. Defending champion Kyren Wilson had a good start to the season by making the Indian Open final and ranked third in my "Tournament Top Ten" list (link at bottom of post) which would suggest he could be a major contender this week. If Michael Holt, Liang Wenbo and Anthony McGill come through their respective wildcard round matches then each could be very dangerous dark horses in this section. Holt made the semi-finals here in 2013, and saw off a seed to make the Last 16 in the two years since then. On top of that Holt has started the season by reaching the final of the Riga Masters showing the improvements in his game over the last year. Meanwhile, you will struggle to find many players who have started the season as well as McGill. A victory at the Indian Open was sandwiched in between good finishes at the World Open and Riga Masters and he is starting to show what he's made of more consistently.
Mark Allen has only played one tournament this season, losing a tight Last 16 match to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh at the Paul Hunter Classic, but a semi-final and runner-up finishes in the last two Shanghai Masters show how dangerous he could be if he gets past a tough first round match. Of course Ronnie O'Sullivan is yet to play a tournament since the World Championship but has certainly been keeping himself warm with the exhibition series that he has been doing with Judd Trump. It is still to be expected that O'Sullivan will not be at his peak best from the start and take a tournament or two to reach his highest heights. The quarter choice here is Ding Junhui the 2013 Shanghai Masters champion. Ding is very hit and miss when it comes to the Chinese tournaments but this does appear to be one he performs very well in. Following the success of three years ago he has followed up with a semi-final loss to eventual winner Stuart Bingham and last year he lost a very close quarter-final on the black to eventual winner Kyren Wilson. After a good run at the end of last season that included making a first Crucible final, so he should be full of confidence.
Mark Allen has only played one tournament this season, losing a tight Last 16 match to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh at the Paul Hunter Classic, but a semi-final and runner-up finishes in the last two Shanghai Masters show how dangerous he could be if he gets past a tough first round match. Of course Ronnie O'Sullivan is yet to play a tournament since the World Championship but has certainly been keeping himself warm with the exhibition series that he has been doing with Judd Trump. It is still to be expected that O'Sullivan will not be at his peak best from the start and take a tournament or two to reach his highest heights. The quarter choice here is Ding Junhui the 2013 Shanghai Masters champion. Ding is very hit and miss when it comes to the Chinese tournaments but this does appear to be one he performs very well in. Following the success of three years ago he has followed up with a semi-final loss to eventual winner Stuart Bingham and last year he lost a very close quarter-final on the black to eventual winner Kyren Wilson. After a good run at the end of last season that included making a first Crucible final, so he should be full of confidence.
Quarter Choice: Ding Junhui
Quarter 2
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Judd Trump Vs Ben Woollaston
Ricky Walden Vs Michael White
Barry Hawkins Vs Robert Milkins
Shaun Murphy Vs Stephen Maguire/Wildcard TBA
The second quarter of the draw is where we find new father Shaun Murphy who has the big life adjustment that players like Mark Selby and Ricky Walden have made in the last couple of seasons and both struggled for form in the couple of months following that. In the long term though, Selby won two ranking events later on in the season that he became a father and Walden made back to back ranking finals. Murphy does have a tough draw this week but he will still have high hopes of performing well after a strong start to the season in the World and Indian Open's and took a lot of confidence thanks to a Grand Prix victory and Players Championship semi-final at the back end of last season when he felt he was back to his best. Speaking of Ricky Walden he is a former champion in Shanghai and someone that the eye is always drawn to in the draw for a Chinese event such is the fact that his record seems to be so much better in Asia than in the UK and the rest of Europe. Barry Hawkins has been struggling for a while in all honesty and steadily been dropping the rankings without much of a signal that he could stem the tide. Of the qualifiers Stephen Maguire is the one to look to for a dark horse, because it still does not seem right that he has fallen out of the top 16 in the world rankings because he is a much better player than that suggests.
The second quarter choice though is a twice Shanghai Masters runner-up Judd Trump. Trump has been keeping his eye in over the summer with the six best-of-11 match exhibition series against Ronnie O'Sullivan, three of which it is worth pointing out have been in the last two weeks. The Ace could easily have won either of his Shanghai finals against Kyren Wilson last year (losing 10-9) or against John Higgins in another tight 2012 final. Trump is another who seems to perform very well in China, winning his second China Open earlier this year in Beijing as well as winning the inaugural International Championship. He has reached more full ranking event quarter-finals than anyone else since the start of the 2014/2015 season, so it is about time that Trump became the winning machine that most expected him to become by now.
Quarter Choice: Judd Trump
Quarter 3
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Stuart Bingham Vs Jamie Jones
Marco Fu Vs David Gilbert
Ali Carter Vs Kurt Maflin/Guan Zhen
John Higgins Vs Matt Selt
The third quarter sees another three former Shanghai Masters champions. Ali Carter added to his ranking event tally in July with another victory on Chinese soil over at the World Open, getting him back up into the top 16 where he belongs. It is obviously a big ask for Carter to win again so soon afterwards but there is no reason why he cannot go far this week. Stuart Bingham took the crown here in 2014 in the same season as he won the World Championship, however he has not won another title in the 16 months since then. When you are slightly overdue a tournament victory it must be nice to go back to somewhere where you have performed well and besides his 2014 victory he put up a valiant 2015 defence making the the semi-finals. With Marco Fu only getting past the first round in Shanghai once since 2009 the heavily improved David Gilbert becomes someone that is to be watched even more closely as a dark horse. When looking at and working on some of my own numbers for the "Stat Attack" (see link at the bottom of the post) Gilbert came out very close to the top 5 for the early season in average contribution when making a break of 50+ and in close frames win percentage. Gilbert has always been a heavy scorer but not always someone who had the confidence to grind out results when that scoring was not turned on, but he seems to have grown greatly in confidence since Last October when he made the International Championship final, and has started the season with a quarter-final in the World Open (both played in China of course). Gilbert is not just one to watch for the possibility of a big performance not just this week but throughout the season as well.
Having said all of that, the selection in this quarter is 2012 Shanghai Master John Higgins. Higgins seems to be flourishing into his 40's as a snooker player. After winning this event in September 2012 it took him until February 2015 and the Welsh Open to win another ranking event but in the months that followed he won two more in Australia and then the International Championships last October. His recent record in big events is a very good one. In China, other than his International win he has had a semi-final at the China Open and a quarter-final at the World Open in July. Add to that quarter-finals in the most recent World and UK Championships and you get an incredible player who has been in fine form for a year now and well capable of winning plenty more events.
Quarter Choice: John Higgins
Quarter 4
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Neil Robertson Vs Ryan Day/Ma Bing
Mark Williams Vs Mei Xi Wen
Joe Perry Vs Stuart Carrington/Niu Zhuang
Mark Selby Vs Martin Gould/Yuan Sijun
The very final quarter is where we find the World Champion and 2011 Shanghai Master Mark Selby. Selby has a pretty good record in Shanghai, but there are not many places where he does not. It was not a long wait for his first title as a two time Crucible winner when he took the top prize at the Paul Hunter Classic at the end of August but his draw this week is not an easy one, as much as you can never, ever write off Selby. The interesting question for Martin Gould, Selby's potential first round opponent, is if can he get through the wildcard match? Normally with a player of Gould's class you would not give the wildcard the time of day, but something must stick in your mind when you lost 5-0 to the same player just a few months ago. Yuan Sijun does indeed look like the most talented of the wildcards on display this week. Joe Perry was the runner-up at the season's opening Chinese ranking tournament, and his confidence is only going in one direction after another good year on the baize. The weight and frequency with which he scored in the latter stages of the World Open was sublime and if he could repeat that this week he would be right up there again, yet that is a very big ask. Of the qualifiers in this section Ryan Day has to be a big dark horse if he can find his best form, but that is something the Welshman has done nowhere near often enough for the talents he possesses.
The final quarter choice though is Day's Last 32 opponent Neil Robertson. Robertson has started the season in fine style by winning the Riga Masters and reaching the semi-finals of the World Open, which are the only two events that he has entered so far. He is by far the heaviest and most frequent scorer on tour in my opinion and when all of the players currently in the game are at their very best he is one of, if not the very best there is. The Shanghai Masters has not been an event he has actually excelled in over the years but there is no real reason for this because he now has a decent record in the other Chinese events. He won the old Wuxi Classic back to back in 2013 and 2014 as well as winning the 2013 China Open and then reaching the final the next year as defending champion. The sense from the start he has had that this could be a very big season for the Australian, which will continue here.
The final quarter choice though is Day's Last 32 opponent Neil Robertson. Robertson has started the season in fine style by winning the Riga Masters and reaching the semi-finals of the World Open, which are the only two events that he has entered so far. He is by far the heaviest and most frequent scorer on tour in my opinion and when all of the players currently in the game are at their very best he is one of, if not the very best there is. The Shanghai Masters has not been an event he has actually excelled in over the years but there is no real reason for this because he now has a decent record in the other Chinese events. He won the old Wuxi Classic back to back in 2013 and 2014 as well as winning the 2013 China Open and then reaching the final the next year as defending champion. The sense from the start he has had that this could be a very big season for the Australian, which will continue here.
Quarter Choice: Neil Robertson
Winner Selection: Judd Trump
That completes the analysis ahead of the Shanghai Masters and it's time to let the players do the talking in looks like being a week of quality snooker.
If you have missed anything, here are some of the links to other posts on the Shanghai Masters.
Starting off on Wednesday with a new feature the "Tournament Top Ten" with stats, spreadsheets and a subtle points system that led to the ranking of this weeks leading contenders and who would win if the whole thing was just played on paper:
http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/shanghai-masters-annisons-analysis.html
Next up was the return of the "Stat Attack" which went into more detail with some of the statistics used in the tournament top ten and focused more on some niche stats and head to heads before the coming week:
http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/shanghai-masters-stat-attack.html
Finally, the entries are already flooding in but do not forget to enter my Fantasy Snooker competition for the 2016/2017 season, with all the details and a rules change for this system explained in the post:
http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/20152016-fantasy-snooker-league.html
The blog will be updated in the coming week with all the news, results and major performances from Shanghai, of which there should be plenty.
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