So far it has been quite eventful:
- Mark King being docked a frame by forgetting his cue #careless.
- Defending champion Neil Robertson defeated by amateur Peter Lines.
- McManus coming back from 5-0 to win the decider 6-5 against Michael Wild.
- A former World Champion whitewashed (Saengkham won 6-0 against Doherty).
- Fergal O’Brien scoring FIVE CENTURIES, INCLUDING THREE CENTURIES IN FECKING A ROW to ‘scrape’ past Barry Hawkins 6-5 – I know there’s a glitch in the matrix somewhere).
- Ronnie demolishing Kaettikun in 56 minutes and in two matches, 5 centuries and 6 half-centuries.
- A 16-year-old and an 18-year-old now in the Last 32.
Considering we believe the UK Championship really comes alive in the Last 32 stage, I can’t wait for this one!
We have 7 players outside of the Top 64. Considering the experienced pros seem to be dominating the latter stages this season (O’Sullivan, Higgins, Morgan, Bond, King, etc.) it is nice to see plenty of young blood in Mann, Brecel and Highfield picking up vital points that can make their season. Just look at David Grace last season. You can almost hope the small ones will hang onto the old generation’s coattails and pin them down in a Gulliver Travel’s skeptical fashion (not the Jack Black version – that was rubbish).
This is the final preview of this tournament, but more detailed! What do you think?
Peter Lines (a) vs. Liam Highfield
Mark Williams vs. Ricky Walden
Matthew Stevens vs. Joe Perry
Michael Georgiou vs. Ronnie O’Sullivan
Maybe Peter should be an amateur more often! He said he feels more relaxed and free since he decided to continue playing snooker since he mentioned the pressures of staying on the tour for so long have drifted away – even if he has nothing to lose, will he crack here. Liam Highfield is one of many promising youngsters who has waited years for a breakthrough and has shown a lot of bottle by coming back from 3-5 down to win the decider against Un-Nooh and 4-1 down to beat Wang Yuchen 6-5 in the next round.
Mark Williams will be a very interesting tie since they are both off-form this season, and potentially their Masters place are in the balance. It is finally good to see Matthew Stevens at this stage since he has been fairly anonymous since reaching the semi-finals of the 2012 World Championship.
Which brings me along to his then-opponent Ronnie O’Sullivan. I am often sceptical of him since I fail to know which Ronnie is going to turn up. Though his hasn’t been against anyone anywhere near his calibre, he has been dominant and clinical as ever and is against his shuddering opponent and turned-Cypriot Michael Georgiou. If Ronnie maintains his form, he is unbeatable and I believe in this quarter, only Mark Williams and Joe Perry can stop him.
Quarter-Final Winner: Ronnie O’Sullivan vs. Mark Williams
Ding Junhui vs. Jamie Jones
Allister Carter vs. David Gilbert
Mei Xiwen vs. Marco Fu
Jimmy Robertson vs. Oliver Lines
This is a very hard quarter to decide who the victor is, especially after Oliver Lines blew everyone out of the water buy beating good friend Judd Trump and sending him back to the drawing board, probably inspired by his father’s run in this event. Oliver had a very lukewarm season hence the shock and is against underachiever Jimmy Robertson, who have very similar strengths. Amongst all the shocks, no-one has really noticed Mei Xiwen, who beat Lisowski and Gould to face Fu. Fu probably has had the easiest route to the final whitewashing here, and I will be so bold to see a surprise from the Chineseman whose best result is reaching the Last 16 of the 2016 Shanghai Masters.
Ding vs. Jones should be a very good game, and both players are beating very good opponents and they would have to be on very good form to beat Carter World Open Champion or the Angry Farmer. The problem with Ding is that he either goes very far or the first round and logically, it should be the former and I am going bold and going for Jimmy here, this could be his breakthrough.
Quarter-Final Winner: Ding Junhui vs. Jimmy Robertson
Yu Delu vs. Luca Brecel
Fergal O’Brien vs. Stephen Maguire
Zhou Yuelong vs. Yan Bingtao
Dominic Dale vs. Shaun Murphy
These are very interesting ties from players whose form came out of bloody nowhere. Yu has been very over the last few years, resulting in being China’s 7th ranked player because of the increase of fortunes of younger talent. Though it wasn’t pretty, he still managed to defeat Stuart Bingham 6-4. He would fancy his chances against Luca Brecel, who has yet to get past this stage of a ranking event. However, the Belgian Bullet shows that he is clinical against Mehta and shows great resilience/(or if we a being simple, a word coined by Iain Dowie:) bouncebackability by coming from behind 5-3 to win the decider against hot prospect Sam Craigie. The form of Fergal has come from bloody nowhere as I mentioned previously -it’s the first time that any player has compiled five tons in a best-of-11 frame match. His opponent Stephen Maguire is slowly improving from last season since his reached the semis of the Shanghai Masters this year. This is probably released from the pressures of dropping out of the Top 16 for dear life, clinging onto the zenith of the Holy Grail and the passion and the I’ll shut up now.
Zhou Yuelong (18) vs. Yan Bingtao (16) must be the first teenage match in this stage for some time (which at 24 makes me feel bloody old – does anyone remember the Nintendo 64? Good times) and this should be very interesting for the players that won the World Cup as the China B team together. This is seriously tricky since honestly, it would surprise me if any of these players bar Dale and O’Brien make the semis so (deep breath) Maguire vs. Yan.
Quarter-Final Winner: Stephen Maguire vs. Yan Bingtao
John Higgins vs. Ben Woollaston
Mark Allen vs. Ryan Day
Zhang Anda vs. Mitchell Mann
Robert Milkins vs. Mark Selby
Allen has finally made the 147! He’s been banging on about how he is one of the very few to not have done it, getting a 146 and now he can shut up about it (I jest of course). It is an incredible achievement and will fill him with great confidence against Ryan Day, as he has a 4 match winning streak against the Dynamite. They will be against former Welsh Open finalist Ben Woollaston against his opponent John Higgins, who is the man to beat so far.
Zhang Anda is the biggest surprise for me, as I have really seen in the World Championships, but this season he reached the Last 16 of the World Open and has beaten impressive opponents in Trump and now McGill. Mann is also a surprise, beating Top 16 Kyren Wilson and the most-improved Sam Baird and should be fairly matched. The last tie features a repeat of the opening match of the last World Championships Milkins vs. Selby, and they have always had great games here. Now for the prediction: Selby vs. oooh ahh I don’t know. It is 8-8 between Higgins vs. Allen and there is no obvious trend between them. I will go with Higgins vs. Selby.
Quarter-Final Winner: John Higgins vs. Mark Selby
UK Championship Winner: Ding Junhui vs. Stephen Maguire
