You see – some alliteration! This seems to be Headline 101 but hey ho. At this rate, I will stop blogging when I accidently write a Buzzfeed-style one that starts off with “People just cannot get enough of…,” “…and you won’t believe what he does next!,” or the phrase “breaking the Internet.” No, she damn well hasn’t, it is still fecking working!
International Championship
Anyway, this past fortnight has shown how much strength in depth there is in the Top16. Out of the eight quarter-finalists, only one (the Ronnie Rampager Michael Holt, take the name what you will) was not in the Top10. In the end, it turned into a bit of an anti-climax really, after the highly anticipated semi-finals between Ding vs. Trump and Selby vs. Bingham ended up finishing quite comfortably. Even the final was done in dominant style, where Selby won the prestigious trophy by trashing the Chinese Sensation 10-1.
It seems ages ago when Selby was criticised for slow play, for being number one despite winning so few ranking titles and being compared as boring and all, but he is proving how a World Champion should be – he has been so consistent as well as Trump and Ding that they participated in the last six tournaments up to that point (excluding the Haining Open which came out of the blue so much that Lord Lucan is preparing the next one). It is also refreshing to see many players who had promised so much such as Trump, Ding and especially Holt so what they can do on a consistent basis as opposed to Neil Robertson and Ronnie O’Sullivan, who tells us for the umpteenth time that he is playing terrible and running is actually kind of lovely (I have to know how to learn the second part).
Chinese Championship
So you think, surely they would certainly cream the opposition the next tournament right? Wellllllll no.
As Trump and Ding got knocked out of the first round by Marco Fu and Ali Carter, Selby succumbed to hands of Mark Allen in the decider. Mark has come rather slowly out of the blocks this season, having earned £17,725 so far, the lowest out of any Top16 player behind Marco Fu on £19,650. Meanwhile, Higgins and Murphy have been dusting off the cobwebs to get the £200,000 prize in store. After two stunning matches between Higgins vs. Allen (9-3) and Bingham vs. Murphy (9-8), it came to a very hard-fought final between the two. Bingham was the most polished player, with two centuries and five half-centuries as opposed to Higgins’s three half-centuries. Then, came the part where even Higgins “didn’t know where these three frames came from…it’s the most calm I felt,” rocking up three centuries in a row to clinch the title. Bingham will be disappointed since he was the better player, but he has been knocking the door down for some time, already reaching two finals and three semi-finals this season so his time will come.
Highly prestigious tournament and a massive success, plenty of deciders made by people who got there by ranking (Robertson and Walden), by form (McGill and Carter) by both (Selby and Trump) and by O’Sullivan not turning up (Williams). But WHY DOES IT NEED TO TURN INTO A LAST 128 FORMAT? I like variety but SURELY having 14 tournaments exactly like this is enough???
There will be another blog coming up this evening on the Champion of Champions. In the meantime, I will be dragging my aching body through London for a supposed highly-rated Sunday Roast. Until next time. Just a thought – what the heck does ‘on fleek’ mean?
