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Williams not past his Sel-by date: Snooker 2018-19

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    #26
    Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
    Higgins through and Quest strangely stick with the table to show Wilson - Akani rather than the matches reaching their conclusion, e.g. Allen 3-2 Hamilton or White 3-2 Lyu. Perhaps only table 1 has a camera?
    Yeah, if it's anything like the normal set up for these events then table 1 has the full camera set up (three in this case which is the minimum for any sort of decent coverage for real television), table 2 (the one Allen / Bingham were on) has a single static camera and everything else has no cameras.

    Sunny Akani put Kyren Wilson out in what was a reasonably entertaining match. Pleased for Akani, he played some good stuff early last season then completely lost his mojo after failing to close out victory over Ronnie in the UK. In commentary they alluded to him being a player who likes the TV cameras and the big stage, well unfortunately he's not going to get many games like that when he's 60-odd in the rankings so he'll have to learn to win matches in cubicles for the time being. He's got McGill now which is a difficult reward for that win.

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      #27
      Ronnie posted a 147 today.

      That's his fifteenth and means he has made over 10% of all the 147s in professional snooker history. (There have been 143 so far.)
      Last edited by Kevin S; 17-10-2018, 16:06.

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        #28
        The final matches of the last 32 coming to a conclusion. Trump is in a little trouble, trailing Lisowski 2-0. Mark Williams is 2-2 with Zhou Yuelong.

        A few big casualties in these short matches including Hawkins and Murphy today, Selby and Allen yesterday. Stevens had beaten White 4-0 but was then beaten 4-1 by Ronnie.
        Last edited by Kevin S; 18-10-2018, 15:38.

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          #29
          Last 16:
          Ronnie O'Sullivan v Eden Sharav
          Neil Robertson v Luo Honghao
          Trump/Lisowski v Ryan Day
          Mark Davis v John Higgins
          Ricky Walden v Stuart Bingham
          Ali Carter v Daniel Wells
          Robert Milkins v Noppon Saengkham
          Stephen Maguire v Williams/Zhou

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            #30
            Williams defeated and another big beast crashes out.

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              #31
              But Trump has turned his match round and I think is through now.

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                #32
                Stuart Bingham v Dark Mavis in the final today. If anyone predicted that at the start of the week, well I hope you had money on it. Mavis put an out of sorts Ronnie out last night, he played some measured snooker with a couple of sizeable breaks prior to the interval at which point I went to the pub so can't comment on how he closed it out.

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                  #33
                  It's COC week - the Champion of Champions at Coventry's ground. This is a relatively new tournament but has quickly become established as one of the more prestigious events to win. Players qualify it by virtue of winning tournaments and only twelve of them managed to do that over the last year (including Michael Georgiou who won the Shoot Out) so they've had to top up the field from the world rankings - Judd Trump, Ding Junhui, Barry Hawkins and Luca Brecel all got in via this method. They have quite a neat format for this event, a pair of matches in the afternoon then the winners come back in the evening to play each other. Winner of that goes on to the semi finals at the end of the week. Shaun Murphy is defending champion and opens proceedings this afternoon, though his form has been non-existent so far this season. All live on ITV4, though disappointingly they've got new theme music which means they've ditched the break bumpers that try to present snooker as "edgy" by someone slamming the chalk on the table.

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                    #34
                    Watching a bit of Trump v Wilson now. To think that once upon a time ITV would've had a Champions League match on at this point.

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                      #35
                      This has been an excellent tournament and the final is bubbling up nicely. Ronnie was 5-1 up this afternoon but Kyren Wilson is playing some splendid stuff this evening and is about to bring it back to 8-8. This would be Wilson's biggest ever victory so the question is whether he might tighten up if he gets close to the winning line.

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                        #36
                        Wilson made a flawless 65 until he ran out of position and put the black safe. Ronnie played a superb shot to pot a red and develop the black, got 24 points on the board then missed a black and conceded. 9-8 Wilson, his fourth frame in a row and just one away now.

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                          #37
                          Good heavens, Wilson made 61 and missed a red, Ronnie had a bit of luck with the run of the balls on the final red and steals the frame for 9-9.

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                            #38
                            After a comedy of errors at the start of the frame Ronnie gets in and makes a century to clinch the championship. What a dramatic finish to a magnificent match. Wilson will take some time to get over that though.

                            Straight on to the next Home Nations event tomorrow, the Northern Ireland Open in Belfast and Bingham trying to win the million quid (spoiler, he won't). Mark Allen is the home hero and in a fine run of form at the moment. "I'm not really looking forward to that at the moment" says Ronnie.

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                              #39
                              The first major of the season starts today, the UK Championship at the Barbican in York. It's quite amusing the way this just dribbles into life without any great fanfare on a Tuesday afternoon. They play the first round this week, then Friday is a day off while they rig all the telly stuff up for the BBC coverage to begin on Saturday with the final on Sunday week. It's common to say that the tournament has declined a little in previous years - it used to be all multi-session matches whereas only the final is now such and there's several events with bigger prize money - but even so it has prestige and history and big names win it. Recent tournaments have had some right wacky names in the quarters but when it comes down to the final it's always a pair of major players.

                              Judd Trump won the Northern Ireland Open and has been bigging himself up, which likely means he'll lose in the first round here. O'Sullivan was runner up - he's reached at least the semis in every tournament he's played so far this season - and has quite an easy draw for this, apart from potentially meeting Jack Lisowski there's nothing to really concern him before the semis. He's been shooting his mouth off again lately which is probably an attempt to fire himself up. Selby showed some form in Belfast too though his draw looks a lot more awkward. Higgins and Williams have admitted they're both lacking in motivation lately, Murphy was runner up here last year but his form has been dreadful. Kyren Wilson got dicked over by World Snooker in Belfast - he had to play the evening after losing in Coventry and worse still was up against Lee Walker, who is dreadfully slow - and has been knocking on the door for a while, though he's in Selby's quarter. Speaking of slow players there's a cracking looking match up between Anthony Hamilton and Rod Lawler tomorrow.

                              A few other subplots for the tournament:

                              - There could be a change of world number one for the first time since February 2015. Williams will take over if he wins the tournament and Selby loses to James Cahill in the first round. Has to be noted that even if this does happen Selby will retake the spot the following week.

                              - It's the last counting event for Masters qualification. Eleven players have definitely qualified, Stuart Bingham, Ryan Day and Luca Brecel need some weird results to miss out and barring some unlikely winner of the thing the last places will probably be two from Stephen Maguire, Lisowski, Marco Fu and Ali Carter.

                              - This is the final year of the Barbican's current contract to host the tournament. It's quite possible that Barry Hearn will appear at some stage next week and announce they've renewed for three more years or whatever, but World Snooker likes to put tickets on sale a year ahead so if there's been no announcement by championship end then it's reasonable to assume it may move elsewhere.

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                                #40
                                Presumably the race to the Masters has something to do with this but I see that Maguire would meet Carter in round 3, and Lisowski would meet Fu. Looking at the form you'd probably back Lisowski and Carter to get those final two Masters places, with Fu and Maguire looking more patchy.

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                                  #41
                                  It's one of the features of the UK - they don't actually do a draw, rather everyone is placed in the bracket based on their world ranking save for the defending champion who is seeded 1 and the world champion 2. So we get 1 v 128, 2 v 127 etc etc. Fu and Lisowski are currently 16 and 17 respectively so they're seeded for a third round meeting. Fu is defending a lot of points here whereas Lisowski has none, so they'll potentially swap positions after. Especially as Lisowski has already won his first match.

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                                    #42
                                    Selby did lose to Cahill. Is that the biggest first round shock in a major event since Steve Davis lost to Tony Knowles?

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                                      #43
                                      It's a big shock, though you can't really compare across eras since they went to flat draws and everyone enters at the same stage. A few years ago Cahill would have needed to win four or five matches merely get to play Selby and that would probably have been in the last 32 of the tournament.

                                      Also it has to be noted that Cahill isn't on the regular tour and is a top up to make up a full draw. These top up players can be a bit of a lottery, Robertson and Ding have both lost to them in recent years. Cahill is no mug himself, he got to the last 16 in York a few years back and beat Mark King and Ding Junhui in doing so. He's certainly not the third worst player in the field as the bracket suggests. Higgins had similar problems putting away Dechawat Poomjaeng, another top up who was good enough to reach the Crucible quarters in 2013, that went all the way to a final frame.

                                      On the other hand Murphy's season plummeted new depths as he lost to regular tour member Chen Feilong, who only had one win all season prior to this tournament. Murphy did get a nice trip to Paris today mind to promote cue sports' bid to get in the 2024 Olympics (spoiler; it won't).

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                                        #44
                                        Pool does have a decent claim to become an Olympic sport. Its top 50 players come from about two dozen countries across three continents and its last 20 world champions have come from everywhere from the Phillipines to Finland. Plus, crucially, the yanks play it. It's snooker that everyone else with the possible exception of China and Australia will look at and say 'never heard of it'.

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                                          #45
                                          I'd have thought snooker's got the recognition. People who are into cue sports are aware of what it is, even if they don't play it themselves. What it wouldn't bring to the table is even the faint hope of a medal for a country other than the UK, China or Australia.

                                          As for pool, that depends what you mean by 'pool'. 9-ball? US 8-ball? British 8-ball/blackball? 10-ball? Straight pool? (Okay, obviously not straight pool.) Played on a 6-, 7-, 8- or 9-foot table?

                                          I've been watching a fair bit of Chinese 8-ball on YouTube recently. 10 foot table, largish balls with snooker-style pockets. Interestingly, a lot of the top players are Brits. When I was over in England and took my new cue out for its first use I went in a pool hall in Bristol which had a table. Considered it for about three seconds. It looks like a punishing game.

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                                            #46
                                            Originally posted by longeared View Post
                                            It's one of the features of the UK - they don't actually do a draw, rather everyone is placed in the bracket based on their world ranking save for the defending champion who is seeded 1 and the world champion 2. So we get 1 v 128, 2 v 127 etc etc. Fu and Lisowski are currently 16 and 17 respectively so they're seeded for a third round meeting. Fu is defending a lot of points here whereas Lisowski has none, so they'll potentially swap positions after. Especially as Lisowski has already won his first match.

                                            And Lisowski has dispatched Fu, 6-3. That's him in the Masters, then?


                                            edit *checks twitter* apparently it's "a huge step towards the Masters". Righto.

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                                              #47
                                              It does mean that Fu is definitely out of the Masters as he's now out of the top 16. Given that he's got a lot of points to defend in the coming months and he's still experiencing vision problems it's tempting to wonder if he'll ever return there.

                                              Some cracking slow snooker tonight. Sunny Akani and Jak Jones took almost two and a half hours to reach 2-2. Allen v Vafaei started at the same time and finished 6-2 (including time for an interval) twenty five minutes earlier!

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                                                #48
                                                Ronnie's post-match BBC interview after he thrashed Zhou was interesting (at least to someone who lives in Argentina and was previously unaware of the story). Bit odd how Steve Davis spends almost the entire time quite vigorously disagreeing with him before, right at the end, admitting he'd probably think Ronnie had a point if he were still playing himself.

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                                                  #49
                                                  Akani rattled through four more frames for the win in little over an hour after that and they finished a few minutes ago, thought they'd be going well past midnight at one stage. World Snooker will be pleased about that given that they've now got to convert the arena into a two table set up before tomorrow.

                                                  Last sixteen now complete, a high quality line up compared to some years recently. Bottom half of the draw has gone entirely to seeding apart from Akani in place of Selby. Judd Trump should be rubbing his hands at this.

                                                  Ronnie O'Sullivan v Jack Lisowski
                                                  Martin O'Donnell v Ding Junhui
                                                  Judd Trump v Joe Perry
                                                  Lu Ning v Tom Ford
                                                  Sunny Akani v Stuart Bingham
                                                  Kyren Wilson v Barry Hawkins
                                                  Neil Robertson v Mark Allen
                                                  Stephen Maguire v Mark Williams

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                                                    #50
                                                    Amusing incident in Allen - Robertson just now where Robbo missed a red as he was distracted by the scoreboard running a Windows update.

                                                    Contrasting pair of matches this afternoon. Ronnie beat Lisowski 6-1, Lisowski won the first frame but then kept making unforced error after unforced error after unforced error. Ronnie said after that he has to stop missing easy balls if he wants to win things which was a fair summary, Lisowski potted a breathtaking long red then a few shots later missed the black off the spot. In the other match Williams shot into a 4-0 lead, Maguire won the next five before missing a yellow for the match then won the decider through a brave double on a red. So that's Selby remaining at number one in the rankings through to the beginning of February, and in another of the pre-tournament subplots it's been confirmed that the championships will be at the Barbican again next year.

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