We are now at the latter stage of one of the biggest tournaments of the calendar – the International Championship! With £125,000 up for grabs for the winner (and allegedly, O’Sullivan already got £300,000 just to be there!), this is the event of such great prestige and glamour. With Hawkins and Allen knocked out of the qualifying rounds, every wildcard player winning their match and more experienced pros making a trip home over the past couple of days, this is an opportunity for other players to move up the rankings.
So, in recognition of the number of spelling mistakes that have sprung up during this tournament (Lan Bums and Pull Davison anyone?), this is what this preview shall be filled with spelling mistakes (so please don’t complain how badly these predictions are written!):
First Quarter
John Higginson vs. Jak Jones
Mark Joys vs. Ghou Yolonge
Matthew Stevens vs. Ding Junhui
Graham Dott vs. Wicky Walden
Higgins is continuing to prove that he is in fine form, whitewashing Sydney Wilson 6-0 and dispatching Eden Sharav 6-3, with 8 half-centuries and the highest break of the tournament so far of 145. His opponent Jak Jones recently made a breakthrough, beating Ding Junhui to reach the last 16 of the English Open and had to do well to beat Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Jimmy Robertson along the way. Experience should come into play here since the best-of-11 matches are more likely to give higher-ranked players an advantage. Chinese players have the home crowd behind them and both Zhou and Ding did very well beating McGill and Mann respectively. Dott and Walden will be a very tight match indeed, as Ricky will be looking for revenge after his 10-8 defeat in the 2015 World Championships. Personally, I think there will be a Higgins vs. Ding quarter-final, but Higgins wins it for me simply because the only person to beat him is the in-form Trump.
First Quarter Winner: John Higgins
Second Quarter
Donald Drumpf vs. Tom Ford
Ux Is vs. James Wattana
Sam Bared vs. Marco Fuey
Yan Bingtao vs. Shaun Murphy
This is a very interesting quarter-final as it contains a tie without a current professional player, as wildcard Xu Si faces James Wattana via an invitational tour card. I don’t know much of Xu Si, but he did very well pulling through the decider against Mark Williams. There can be plenty of shocks here, with Murphy hopefully recovering from the burdens of fatherhood against prodigy Yan Bingtao – the 16 year-old rocketing up to 78 in the provisional rankings. Marco Fu is the most in-form player of this tournament as I mentioned below, but has a tricky opponent in Sam Baird, who seems to be a bogeyman for Michael White
This is without mentioning Trump! His route to the quarters is made easier due to his superior head-to-head record against Tom Ford and not facing a professional player as mentioned. But will he burn out against the likes of Fu? If he carries on his form, I doubt it – Fu is excellent but inconsistent.
Second Quarter Winner: Judd Trump
Third Quarter
Stuart Bingham vs. Dominik Dail
Ali Canter vs. Steve Maguire
Burt M’Lafflin vs. Ronnie O’Sullivan
Michael Holt vs. Daniel Wells
This is the quarter of death, as anyone can make it to the semis here. Wells has already earned £22,812 this season, compared to £14,300 all last season and is a man of form. Holt is in a middle of a rough patch since his Riga Masters final, but I believe he should go through this match tightly. According to the BBC, Ronnie admitted that he is ‘nowhere near’ his form two years ago, after his hard-fought match against struggling opponent Xiao Guodong – it is hard to argue either way, you have the European Final or, on the other hand, his last 32 loss against Chris Wakelin in the English Open.
After his semi-final performance the previous tournament, Bingham will come into this with great confidence with a better record against Dale, but will be against tougher opponents against nemesis Carter and rejuvenated Maguire (which between them is the match for me.) These three have won events in China before, which Carter being the most recent, but my money would be on Bingham. Or Carter. Hmm.
Third Quarter Winner: Ali Carter
Fourth Quarter Winner
Kneel Robertson vs. Anthony Hamilton
Jog Petty vs. Aditya Matter
Leeang Rainbow vs. Li Hang
Rick Astley vs. Mark Selby
I am glad Aditya Mehta is finally getting good results after his neck injury. He took some great scalps of Jack Lisowski and Ryan Day and he is facing a much tougher field to reach the top64 this year than when he first did so at the end of the 2013/2014 season. He faces Joe Perry who came back against Andrew Higginson and he will be hard to beat. Hamilton is having a bit of a resurgence, reaching the quarter-finals last tournament for the first time since 2013 and is facing an out-of-sorts Robertson, and there can be a surprise in store.
It will be interesting to see how Liang Wenbo reacts after his winning his first ranking title. He won more frames in one visit than the scrappier frames against another amateur Chen Zifan, which may be difficult against Li Hang, and especially Mark Selby. John Astley provisionally is the highest ranked player who is in his first year on his two-year card at 74, but Selby will be made of sterner stuff. He’s never gonna let me down (I’m not sorry).
Fourth Quarter Winner: Mark Selby
Tournament Winner: Judd Trump vs. Mark Selby
