After a few big names did not make the trip to India, we will see a lot more of them this week with the likes of world champion Mark Selby, Ding Junhui, Marco Fu, Barry Hawkins, Neil Robertson, Mark Williams and Liang Wenbo all making the trip out. Unfortunately, last season's winner Ali Carter when the tournament was held back in July, opted not to enter the qualifiers that were completed in the second week of August.
Much like the China Championship a month previously, the winner here will take home £150,000 and a coveted place in the November's Champion of Champions. In fact, the entire prize money structure and format of play is the same to the China Championship with the runner-up taking home a healthy £75,000, while matches will be played over the best-of-9 frames until the semi-finals which are best-of-11's and the final is played over two sessions and 19 frames.
Quarter 1
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Mark Selby or Kritsanut Lertsattayatthorn Vs Lee Walker
Robert Milkins Vs Jamie Jones
Anthony McGill Vs Duane Jones
Stephen Maguire Vs Ken Doherty
Michael White or Ma Chunmao Vs Cao Yupeng
Stuart Bingham Vs Alfie Burden
Luca Brecel Vs Mike Dunn
Shaun Murphy Vs Daniel Wells
In the top quarter we have plenty of top talent that has been in brilliant form over the last few tournaments. First up is Indian Open runner-up Anthony McGill who also played well in this event last season making the quarter-finals, prior to winning his maiden ranking title in India, so this is a stretch of the calendar that he enjoys. Another man who made the quarter-finals a year ago in Yushan was Shaun Murphy. Murphy comes into this off the back of a last 16 in India and back to back finals one of which was on Chinese soil just a month ago. Murphy has a testing draw here as he could, if the draw pans out a certain way, face the two men who beat him in the China Championship and Paul Hunter Classic finals in the last 32 and last 16 should he get that far. Luca Brecel was the China Championship winner in August, and since then he has had a couple of early exits as he adjusts to life as a ranking event winner. Again the Belgian has a tough draw this week that he will have to negotiate if he is to go on a deep run.
Michael White meanwhile was the Paul Hunter Classic champion and has not featured in a tournament since that win so it will be interesting to see if he can carry on his good form from that weekend. For me he could well go on and have another good week as he looks to continue climbing back towards the top 16. Don't forget the likes of Stuart Bingham who can turn it on in any given week and reach the very latter stages, while Ken Doherty's good start to the season carried forward with an appearance in the last 16 of the Indian Open. Doherty can certainly cause problems for Stephen Maguire in round one.
My opening quarter choice for this week is world number one Mark Selby. The world champion has skipped some events at the start of the season, but this was around the time of year last year when he kicked into gear making the final of the Shanghai Masters. Such is how much confidence a back to back world champion must have and how good a player Selby is now, it is hard to see there being tournaments this year when his name is in the draw and he does not go on to reach the latter stages. Looking at the draw I fancy Selby to make the last 16, and if he can do so convincingly enough it will send out a big message to the rest of the field that he means business. With a big prize on offer this week, I certainly expect Selby to deliver the goods as he so often does anywhere in the world that he is playing.
Michael White meanwhile was the Paul Hunter Classic champion and has not featured in a tournament since that win so it will be interesting to see if he can carry on his good form from that weekend. For me he could well go on and have another good week as he looks to continue climbing back towards the top 16. Don't forget the likes of Stuart Bingham who can turn it on in any given week and reach the very latter stages, while Ken Doherty's good start to the season carried forward with an appearance in the last 16 of the Indian Open. Doherty can certainly cause problems for Stephen Maguire in round one.
My opening quarter choice for this week is world number one Mark Selby. The world champion has skipped some events at the start of the season, but this was around the time of year last year when he kicked into gear making the final of the Shanghai Masters. Such is how much confidence a back to back world champion must have and how good a player Selby is now, it is hard to see there being tournaments this year when his name is in the draw and he does not go on to reach the latter stages. Looking at the draw I fancy Selby to make the last 16, and if he can do so convincingly enough it will send out a big message to the rest of the field that he means business. With a big prize on offer this week, I certainly expect Selby to deliver the goods as he so often does anywhere in the world that he is playing.
Best of the Rest: Anthony McGill and Shaun Murphy
Quarter Winner: Mark Selby
Quarter 2
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Marco Fu Vs Ian Burns
Graeme Dott Vs Peter Ebdon
Liang Wenbo or Akani Songsermsawad Vs Li Hang
Ricky Walden Vs Andrew Higginson
Joe Perry Vs Yu De Lu
Ryan Day Vs Gary Wilson
Dominic Dale Vs Xiao Guodong
Ding Junhui or Hammad Miah Vs Zhang Anda
The second quarter features a huge amount of home interest with six Chinese players featuring in this section alone along with Hong Kong's Marco Fu. Liang Wenbo will hope to go better than his effort at the China Championship where he lost his heldover game, while his last 64 opponent (should Liang get through) Li Hang will be hoping for something close to repeat business after a run to the semi's in Guangzhou. Xiao Guodong struggled in August qualifying last month as this event marked the only one of the three he qualified for from that week. Zhang Anda will be hoping to show some consistency after putting together a run to the quarter-finals in India last week, a stage he reached for the first time in a full ranking event. Then of course there is the Chinese number one Ding Junhui who will be hoping to win an event that is being played in the same calendar slot that was previously held by the Shanghai Masters, an event that Ding won last year for a second time. Given how little of Ding we have seen this season it is again tough to judge how he will get on.
There is also plenty of British interest that is led by last year's World Open runner-up Joe Perry who played exceptionally in that tournament and was unlucky not to lift the title, so he can certainly go one better this week. Ricky Walden will be looking to build on two good victories he had in India as he comes back from bad back problems. His record in China is always worth considering and he could be a dark horse in the draw this week if he keeps making good progress. Ryan Day was a ranking winner at the start of the season and will be looking to get a second under his belt and open up the floodgates.
My selection from this quarter is Marco Fu. Fu has not played a great deal so far this season but when I looked at the draw I fancied him more than most of the others in this section. He did appear in the 6 Reds in Thailand a couple of weeks ago making the semi-finals, and his loss in the last 32 of the China Championship was to the eventual champion in Luca Brecel. I strongly like his chances of coming through the first two or three rounds with comfort, and if he can keep up some of the heavy scoring he has started to consistently hammer home in the last year, I think he could start reaching the latter stages and winning ranking tournaments a lot more often because he has always had the talent to do so.
There is also plenty of British interest that is led by last year's World Open runner-up Joe Perry who played exceptionally in that tournament and was unlucky not to lift the title, so he can certainly go one better this week. Ricky Walden will be looking to build on two good victories he had in India as he comes back from bad back problems. His record in China is always worth considering and he could be a dark horse in the draw this week if he keeps making good progress. Ryan Day was a ranking winner at the start of the season and will be looking to get a second under his belt and open up the floodgates.
My selection from this quarter is Marco Fu. Fu has not played a great deal so far this season but when I looked at the draw I fancied him more than most of the others in this section. He did appear in the 6 Reds in Thailand a couple of weeks ago making the semi-finals, and his loss in the last 32 of the China Championship was to the eventual champion in Luca Brecel. I strongly like his chances of coming through the first two or three rounds with comfort, and if he can keep up some of the heavy scoring he has started to consistently hammer home in the last year, I think he could start reaching the latter stages and winning ranking tournaments a lot more often because he has always had the talent to do so.
Best of the Rest: Ding Junhui and Ricky Walden
Quarter Winner: Marco Fu
Quarter 3
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
John Astley Vs Sam Craigie
Tom Ford Vs Jimmy Robertson or Luo Honghao
Mark Williams Vs Matthew Stevens
Mark King Vs Chen Zhe
Michael Holt Vs Mark Joyce
Kyren Wilson Vs Hossein Vafei
Alan McManus or Hu Hao Vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Barry Hawkins Vs Chris Wakelin
Quarter number three is the most likely in my opinion, to produce a run from someone outside of the top 16 to go far. First of all is the fact that Judd Trump is missing having been thrashed in qualifying by Sam Craigie who beat Marco Fu in Yushan last year to make the last 32 and he his certainly someone who could jump out of the pack at the top of this section. Mark King will be looking to carry on from where he left off in India, having played very well to make the semi-finals and miss out narrowly in a deciding frame. Michael Holt looked to be scoring well in India last week before losing to eventual champion John Higgins in the last 16. Holt has had some decent runs out in China over the last year, making the quarter-finals of the 2016 Shanghai Masters, International Championship and China Championship (under its previous invitational status) in pretty quick succession. This could well be the week that Holt takes form a bit further.
There is obvious quality in the shape of top 16 stars Barry Hawkins and Kyren Wilson but we have not seen much of either in full tournament play in the last month or so, whereas there are a number of players that come into this event quite sharp. Watch out too for Thepchaiya Un-Nooh who made it to the semi-finals in Yushan last year before losing out to eventual winner Carter. He showed with victories over the likes of Selby and McGill what he could do and it would not be surprising if he makes a ranking final this season having been unlucky not to do so already. Coming into this after a final on home soil at the 6-Reds he is playing well and if he finds his scoring and rhythm early this week he could be very dangerous.
My third quarter pick is the man who beat Un-Nooh in that 6-Reds final, Mark Williams. As well as winning the invitational 6 Reds title, the Welshman has started the season strongly in ranking play by making the Riga Masters semi-finals and China Championship quarter-finals. I actually picked him out in a draw that lacked a few top players before the Paul Hunter Classic, but he ended up withdrawing there. However, having more time off between events is probably going to be more beneficial to getting back in the big time winners circle, in order to keep him fresh and fully motivated for each tournament. In a section that is perhaps lacking of a stand out name, Williams was the first to jump out at me and I think he has a decent route through the draw if he is playing well.
Best of the Rest: Mark King and Michael Holt
Quarter Winner: Mark Williams
Quarter 4
Last 64 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Neil Robertson Vs Noppon Saengkham
Ben Woollaston Vs Eden Sharav
Mark Allen Vs Oliver Lines
Michael Georgiou Vs Allan Taylor
David Gilbert Vs Tian Pengfei
Martin Gould or Fan Zhengyi Vs Jack Lisowski
Matthew Selt Vs Elliot Slessor
John Higgins Vs Alexander Ursenbacher
The final quarter is where we find the most recent ranking winner, Indian Open champion John Higgins. Higgins continued his fine form of the last year and it would be no surprise at all if he carried that form over here and made the latter stages again. He is certainly the bookies favourite to win this quarter anyway. Neil Robertson has not appeared a whole lot in the last month or so, having skipped India and Furth whilst the tournament he did play saw him exit in the last 64 stage in Guangzhou so he does not have a large amount of tournament practice or form to bring in essentially. There are not a whole lot of names that jump out in this quarter in terms of form but I do like the chances of David Gilbert. Having made the quarter-finals in India with some heavy scoring and a good win against Mark Allen it was surprising to then see him lose to rookie Xu Si, but he is coming back to a tournament here where he made the quarter-finals a year ago. Ever since his run to the International Championship final a couple of years ago he has quietly gone about his business and picked up some good finishes without forcing his way into another big final, but with the way the tour is now he certainly has plenty of time and chances to get there again.
My final quarter selection for this week is Mark Allen. Allen again showed signs last week in India of a return to form with two good wins to start his week off, scoring heavily and not looking too troubled. He could not keep it going though as he was outplayed in the last 16 by Gilbert, but who knows how far he could have gone. The signs have been there for a while that Allen's game is not far away from producing another big run or a big title, even if some of the results do not necessarily back it up. He is of course no stranger to playing well out in China, having reached four of his six ranking finals here with two wins and two loses in those. Looking at his area of the draw, I think he could again get off to a fast start, and from there it will all be about whether he can get it going from the last 16 or quarter-final stages which he has been unable to do in the last year. His personal life looks very settled also and has produced a new bundle of joy in recent times, so the Northern Irishman's motivation should be higher than ever and I do not think it will be too long until that produces results.
Best of the Rest: David Gilbert
Quarter Winner: Mark Allen
Winner Selection: Mark Williams
Viewers in the UK and Europe can watch this tournament in full on Eurosport TV and online via Eurosport Player, and with plenty of big names competing for a big prize you would expect them to bring their A games, making for an enjoyable week of snooker.
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