There's more than one Barnsley - the 2019-20 snooker thread

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Neil Robertson has had to scratch from an event after his satnav directed him to a village of 100 houses called Barnsley in Gloucestershire. Not the big town in Yorkshire where his match was.

There's more than one Sheffield, too, isn't there?

[longeared]

There's a Sheffield in Cornwall, just past Penzance. Robbo would soon spot the difference I'd hope.

The funny thing about this is that they regularly have qualifying matches at the Barnsley Metrodome and have even had the odd tournament there over the years, so it's not like it's a completely different venue. I see that his excuse was that his friend who normally drives him was competing on the Challenge Tour. Robbo and several other players also missed the Riga Masters back in July when the last flight of the day from Luton to Riga was cancelled because of thunderstorms (IIRC it was that really really really hot day we had) and there was no time to reschedule matches or get an alternative flight the following morning.

The season as a whole has been fairly slow going so far. Shaun Murphy had a shocking campaign last time out but has been the player of the season from what we've had - out of the three ranking tournaments he won the China Championship in a final frame decider against Mark Williams last week and was runner up to Judd in the International Championship. Seem to remember saying back in the spring that he'd need some results to qualify for the Crucible automatically, well he's pretty much done that already. He was also runner up to Ronnie in the (non ranking) Shanghai Masters, which is the only tournament Ronnie has deigned to play in so far. He's entered the World Open but doesn't have to worry about his satnav as his match against Dominic Dale is being held over and played in China. James Cahill, who people may remember beating Ronnie at the Crucible, is on the tour but his only win so far was against Jimmy White in Riga qualifying. He's in this tournament and playing Mark Allen tonight. Assuming they both find the venue.

[longeared]

Mark Selby's just won the English Open, his first tournament win for over a year. Today has been a bit of a contrast to his slog over Allen in the semi final, he's smashed Dave Gilbert 9-1 with a 98% pot success rate. He's not usually been that arsed about tournaments like this in recent seasons, so interesting to see him winning matches at 10am and becoming the player who has a chance of winning a million quid if he wins all the other Home Nations tournaments (he won't).

The other exciting feature of the week was Ronnie repeating his criticisms of the K2 leisure centre in Crawley, the same venue which he described as "smelling of urine" last year. At one point he posted a tweet complaining about the canteen which World Snooker felt obliged to issue a tweet themselves explaining that it was an old photo.

[longeared]

Deciding frame in the Champion of Champions final, on ITV4 now. In the last frame Trump potted championship ball then missed the next red, Robertson got the snooker and cleared the colours to force a black ball respot which he won. Been some hefty break building in this match including Judd scoring three centuries in a row during the afternoon session. Robertson also had a go at a maximum and broke down on the penultimate red.

[longeared]

And Robertson makes a superb total clearance of 137 to win it. Trump's been so good this last year it's almost comforting to see him perform an old school snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory. Excellent match and from what I've seen of it a really good tournament.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

It's almost an anticlimax when a deciding frame is won by a total clearance. You expect a nervy battle on the colours, going to the final black. God, that 1985 final spoiled us ...

[Kevin S]

UK Championship starts tomorrow though mainly is a wheat and chaff situation initially. Perhaps the most intriguing match will be Nigel Bond v Luca Brecel.

[longeared]

Yeah, they don't do a draw for this, instead everyone is placed in the bracket based on their world ranking so there are some fairly unappetising match ups in the opening round. Judd Trump is up against Amine Amiri for example, Amiri has only played one match this season (against Barry Hawkins) and lost 4-0. As top seed Ronnie has ended up with a Q-School top up in the shape of Ross Bulman, an eighteen year old Irish amateur. Bulman is not the worst player in the draw, he won't win but he might give Ronnie an initial little fright - he's good enough to have taken a pair of frames off Joe Perry the other week. Big names do occasionally lose at this stage though, most obviously Mark Selby losing to James Cahill last year. Cahill has only won one match all season and has to face David Gilbert. The other game of interest is Mark Allen v Jimmy White, although you'd need a pretty active imagination to see the Whirlwind winning that.

As always the UK also has a subplot in that it sets the Masters field. Thirteen players have already qualified and beyond that it should be three from Perry, Ding, Carter and Maguire. Ding and Carter are seeded to meet in the last 32 here, although for that to happen Ding would have to beat Duane Jones and then Michael Georgiou / Oliver Lines and given both his poor record in York and form this season I wouldn't feel entirely confident about him winning both those matches.

Tournament begins tomorrow - I always like the way that the first major of the season trundles quietly into life on a Tuesday afternoon - and BBC coverage starts up Saturday. Friday is a rest day while they rig the telly stuff up.

I'll be there for some last 16 matches on Thursday week. Anyone else going at all?

[Kevin S]

Zhao 'The Greyhound' Xintong is currently playing with an average shot time of 15 seconds. Interesting career path so far for the 22 year old, who was a phenomenon in his teenage years but was back at Q School in 2018. Been a bit up and down this season so far - out in the first round of the Northern Irish Open but made it to round four of the English Open, beating Hamilton and Robertson on the way before losing to Gilbert only in a decider. He's 3-2 up on Alexander 'The Swiss Fish' Ursenbacher.

[Kevin S]

I wonder if 'The Swiss Fish' is a genuine nickname, or someone having a laugh with Wikipedia edits.

[longeared]

I've never heard that nickname before, I'd have thought something bear-based might be more appropriate. There's a player in Ursenbacher somewhere, he goes on a run every now and then and shows how good he can be. He seems to lose his first match in a tournament an awful lot though, and given that he's still Swiss based you wonder about the quality of practice he's getting.

Stuart Bingham was given a scare by 16 year old Lei Peifan - it got to 4-4 and 0-61 - but he eventually came back to win that frame and scrambled through 6-4. John Higgins v Peter Lines is the interesting game of the evening given that Lines has won their last five meetings (admittedly two of these were in the Shoot Out) and Higgins' last victory was all the way back in 1994. However Lines hasn't won a match this season so it would be quite something for this sequence to continue.

[Kevin S]

Gilbert-Cahill looks like it might be living up to the billing as well. The youngster is ahead by the odd frame in three.

[Kevin S]

So in the two previous meetings of these players, Gilbert had won all ten frames.

Tonight: Gilbert 4-6 Cahill. James makes another first round splash at a major, including a 130 break.

[Kevin S]

Interestingly frank admissions from Gilbert:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/snooker/50570669

[longeared]

Shaun Murphy has carelessly managed to lose to Eden Sharav, who hadn't won a match since April. Sharav is in the Cahill-esque position of actually being a bit better than his ranking suggests, he's had some decent wins in the past but managed to lose his tour card at the end of last season. Particular drawback of that is that we'll have to listen to Murphy all week on the BBC now.

[longeared]

Mark Williams had one of those evenings where he looked like he didn't know which end of the cue to hold and crashed out 6-2 to Michael White. Good to see White finding a bit of form at last, he was a top 16 player not all that long ago but he'd only won once this campaign prior to the UK and is in some danger of losing his tour card at the end of the season. He'll play Mark Davis next.

Kyren Wilson and Barry Hawkins were the main casualties of this round. Gary Wilson has just come back from 4-0 down to beat Chris Wakelin by winning six frames on the bounce.

[Kevin S]

Blimey, Nigel Bond.

[Kevin S]

I mean, it's always pleasing when one of the guys from the 90s gives a bloody nose to the current crop, but Nigel Bond was quite a tough watch 25 years ago, and he's not exactly got quicker...

[Kevin S]

Oh my word, he's done it! Bond 6-3 Trump.

[longeared]

I've been in a meeting all afternoon so only saw the last three balls being potted, but that is an absolutely huge upset.

[longeared]

Elsewhere a hot headed shot from Mark King lets Neil Robertson in to build a break that eventually leads to a 6-4 victory. That was a very Mark King moment.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The British PGA matchplay tournament in golf was renowned in the 60s and 70s for proper veterans like Dai Rees, Max Faulkner and Neil Coles popping back up aged 55 and beating players younger than their own kids. This feels like that.

[Kevin S]

The odd tasty match coming up in round 4, with Ronnie v Ding the box office tie.

An upshot of Bond beating Trump is that he's taken what seems a relatively kind section of the draw. It's Gary Wilson or Joe Perry in round 4 and Mark Allen or Kurt Maflin in the quarter final. Allen is the only one of those currently in the top 16.

[longeared]

Perry's ranked 15.

Ronnie was rather workmanlike beating Noppon Saengkam 6-2 this afternoon. The game zipped along as Noppon tried to pot absolutely everything but he couldn't control the cue ball enough and gave Ronnie too many chances. Ding beating Ali Carter combined with Stephen Maguire winning means that Carter is definitely out of the Masters. Maguire is having a rather familiar experience at the major tournaments, he beats everybody ranked below him then he'll get knocked out as soon as he meets someone higher.

[longeared]

Dramatic finish to Allen - Maflin. Went to a decider, Maflin took a 53 point lead before he ran out of position. Allen clawed much of the deficit back before missing a tricky red. Maflin potted the final red after a bad safety shot led to a fluke, then he chose to go for a risky brown rather than putting a colour safe. He missed the brown, Allen came back in and cleared the colours to win. Maflin's shot selection let him down there - not the first time that's happened to him.

Higgins - Bingham on the main table was tough going earlier, apparently it's currently locked at four all.