FEATURED: The Race for the Masters

This is part of the snooker season where the heat will be turned up, the pressure becomes intense and many anoraks on computers getting out their pocket calculators finding out every permutation possible to find out what could happen.

The race to play at the Alexandra Palace is always a tight one for many, many reasons. First of all, this is the tournament of the elite. The opportunity to participate as one of the top sixteen players as well as to win one of the Triple Crown events is a breakthrough for many young players and something that is prized to keep for more established players. This is the link that shows the race to the Masters: http://www.wpbsa.com/rankings/race-to-the-masters/

So far, we can imagine that the top eight players have definitely cemented their place in the Masters. They are Ronnie O’Sullivan (2017 Masters champion), Mark Selby (2017 World Championship), Ding Junhui, Judd Trump, John Higgins, Shaun Murphy, Barry Hawkins and Mark Allen. We can also assume that Marco Fu, Ali Carter, Kyren Wilson and Luca Brecel simply because they have enough points to not be overtaken. This also means Luca Brecel would make his debut in the Masters.

This leaves players ranked No.12-No.16 who are under threat. Anthony McGill, who is also likely to make his Masters debut, is £37,700 away from being No. 17 seed. Considering a snooker player can earn £50,500 just by reaching the quarter-final of the Shanghai Masters, the Northern Ireland Open and the UK Championship, it is hard to ignore this unlikely scenario. Hell, a £150,000 winner’s cheque can lead players like Michael Holt, Ricky Walden and last year’s runners-up Joe Perry into the mix!

But the main battleground is between No. 15 and No. 17. The fact that Stuart Bingham is out of the running because of you-know-what makes things very, very interesting indeed. There is only £1,412 between Ryan Day and Neil Robertson, which could mean that just one win (even a win from the Northern Ireland Open) can make the difference.

Ryan Day’s maiden win in Riga earlier this year has proved vital to his chances of playing at the Ally Pally for the first time since 2010. However, he hasn’t built on that form since then, with his only sole quarter-final appearance came at the recent Champion of Champions. Even then, he still threw away a 4-2 lead to lose 6-4 against an out-of-form Anthony Hamilton. He does have good ties coming up. In the Shanghai Masters, he has a Last 64 match against Yu Delu and two Last 128 ties against John Astley and Jamie Curtis-Barrett, both of whom are unlikely to trouble the Welshman. Liang Wenbo has the easiest of ties out of the lot. Three Last 128 ties against Rod Lawler, Jackson Page and Sanderson Lam are unlikely to slow him down, but he is vulnerable to a shock every now and again when his emotions aren’t under control. He has lost to low-ranking players in Ian Burns, Li Hang and Yan Bingtao earlier this season, which tells me he’s in trouble when he’s against players who are in blistering form like Li and Yan. Liang is very low down the money list, since the furthest he reached this season is the third round. Don’t forget, he choked when he had the opportunity to quality for the Crucible in 2016 but lost to Peter Lines in the first round of the China Open to pave way for Maguire.

Now for the main reason why I wanted to write this article: Neil Robertson: Triple Crown Champion; Australian legend; Former No.1 and winner of 12 ranking titles could be out of the running of the Masters. But then again, Ding failed to qualify for the World Championships in 2016 and that gave him a massive kick up the backside! Neil has failed to reach a semi-final of a ranking event since the 2016 European Masters and though he has reached four quarter-finals since then, he only finished 13th in the one-year ranking list behind the likes of McGill, Liang and Carter. He recovered from his well-documented video game addiction last season but that was at the time when everyone improved while he stood still. He was already knocked out of the Shanghai Masters by rookie Chris Totten, which means that his performances in the next two events are absolutely crucial. He has slippery ties against Jamie Jones and Lawler, which will be interesting!

What about the likes of Mark King, Martin Gould and Stephen Maguire? Can they steal it? Out of the three, Maguire is most likely to out of the three for me. He has already felt the pressure of successfully securing a Crucible place at the expense of Ding Junhui back in 2016, even describing it as the pressure he doesn’t think he felt before. He has easier first round ties in the coming month but so does defending Northern Ireland champion, Mark King. He has ties with Jamie Jones, Matthew Bolton and Boonyarit Keattikun to look forward to. Unlike the other two, Gould only has two tourneys to participate in, as he will not attend the Northern Ireland Open. He has a decent draw in the Shanghai Masters now that he’s in the same quarter as the out-of-form Marco Fu and the withdrawn Bingham – perhaps he could have a good run here?

It is a tricksy one, especially with Neil Robertson. Even after two days of posing the question, both sides of the same coin have been relatively neck and neck. Neil’s form has slowly been coming on after reaching the quarter-finals of the European Masters and Last 16 of the International Championship. The only person I think Neil can replace is Liang, because I believe Day’s consistency will be enough to pull him through. My gut tells me Liang will better Robertson in this fight, but it would not surprise me if Maguire takes the spot in the last minute! What do you think?

Do you think Neil Robertson will make it to qualify for next year's Masters?

— Cluster of Reds (@clusterofreds1) November 8, 2017