It’s weird that after so much snooker in a sporadic fashion that this is only the second ranking event of the calendar. After the World Cup, the Hong Kong Masters, the World Games and finally the CVB Snooker Challenge, we have ended up in China! Last year’s tournament was a great success in that it attracted fantastic plaudits and a great final between Stuart Bingham and the man defending the title John Higgins. This could’ve been something different or even a Chinese Masters equivalent!
Unfortunately for Higgins, when last year he had to get past 15 professionals amongst snooker’s elite, he is instead against 127 players from the start in the best-of-9s instead of the best-of-11s. To the purists, this tourney is already tainted because it is too similar to many other tournaments and I am not inclined to agree. I hate to see it, but when the only events that do not the Last 128 rule are the World Championships, Snooker Shoot-Out, Championship League and the Masters, you know there is a problem. Last week, I found out how unfair these draws can be, when a huge majority of matches that David John played are against a Top 32 player in the past two years, compared to Josh Boileau, who played 3 in the past season. One small example, but at least a tiered qualifying system eliminates that bout of bad luck.
But there are many upsides: a huge cheque of £150,000 is to be won and looking down the list there are many tasty ties in this competition. Excluding the outstanding first round ties, only seven Bottom 64 players made it to the venues, which means most top quality players came through unscathed. Only two from the Top 32 players, which are Kyren Wilson and Ricky Walden, failed to make the cut having been beaten by Michael Georgiou and Ian Preece respectively.
This will be interesting for many reasons, but the most important one is whether the competitors further down the ranks can carry their form from the qualifying rounds. Ken Doherty and Cao Yupeng are 2 out the 4 players still in this draw outside of the Top 64 who won all three of their qualifying matches. These two players were relegated from the main in the past few years, so it is a wonder where this burst of form came from.
We will gain more insight in how recent World Under-21 Championship winner Fan Zhengyi will do, with a perfectly winnable tie against Tian Pengfei, who had a dreadful spell throughout last season. The final quarter is by far the most difficult one, with Mark Williams, Day, Higgins, Neil Robertson, Micael White and Allen in the mix while there are favourable routes for out-of-form Ali Carter and Ding Junhui in the second quarter. You know when Judd and Ronnie could potentially face each other in the Last 16 that this can be potentially good! Though Ronnie may be lacking in practice, he still reached the final of the Hong Kong Masters and dominated the CVB Snooker Challenge for Great Britain against China, so we cannot rule him out as having a jolly!
The China Championship will start in the early hours of the Wednesday 16th August.
First Quarter
Mark Selby/Luo Honghao vs. Noppon Saengkham
Zhou Yuelong vs. Chen Zifan
Martin Gould vs. Andrew Higginson/Hu Hao
Anthony McGill vs. Mark Joyce
Rory McLeod vs. Stephen Maguire
Yan Bingtao vs. Stuart Bingham
Peter Ebdon vs. Anthony Hamilton
Ken Doherty vs. Shaun Murphy
Quarter-Final: Martin Gould vs. Shaun Murphy
Second Quarter
Barry Hawkins vs. Oliver Lines
Ben Woollaston vs. Mark Davis
Ali Carter vs. Aditya Mehta
Ian Preece vs. David Grace
Kurt Maflin vs. Michael Georgiou
Elliot Slessor vs. Alan McManus
Alfie Burden vs. Ding Junhui/Niu Zhuang
Quarter-Final: Barry Hawkins vs. Ding Junhui
Third Quarter
Judd Trump vs. Daniel Wells/Ma Chunmao
Graeme Dott vs. Robert Milkins
Ronnie O’Sullivan vs. Sam Baird
David Gilbert vs. Stuart Carrington
Mike Dunn vs. Joe Perry
Allan Taylor vs. Liang Wenbo/Ian Burns
Jimmy Robertson vs. Luca Brecel
Hossein Vafaei vs. Marco Fu
Quarter-Final: Ronnie O’Sullivan vs. Joe Perry
Fourth Quarter
Neil Robertson vs. Li Hang
Michael White vs. Xiao Guodong
Mark Allen vs. Matthew Stevens
Michael Holt vs. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Cao Yupeng vs. Ryan Day
Tian Pengfei/Fan Zhengyi vs. Mark Williams
Matthew Selt vs. Tom Ford
Chris Wakelin vs. John Higgins/Lu Haotian
Quarter-Final: Mark Allen vs. John Higgins
Final: Ding Junhui vs. John Higgins
