Now that the German Masters qualifiers have ended, I can at least see how my ONES TO WATCH are doing so far. Basically, I highlighted a number of players that were outside of the Top 32 at the start of the season and predicted which ones are going to do well this season. Here is the link for the full list and the reasons why I reckoned they were going to do so well: 2017/2018 SEASON: WHO TO WATCH OUT FOR?
Basically, this is a moment to either bask in my own glory with a smug grin or look like a bit of moron and wonder why I started predicting things like I knew everything in the first place. It’s nearly Christmas – might as well have fun with it!
Xiao Guodong – Start Rank: 39; Current Rank: 29
In the 2015/2016 season, he had a pretty horrible time. Not only because he won £21,750, which is a fairly pitiful amount, he lost a huge amount of points by reaching the 2013 Shanghai Masters and reaching the 2014 World Championship. Last season was much better, going one better by reaching the Last 16 of the World Championship by beating Ryan Day 10-4 as well as reaching the final of the ranking event the Snooker Shoot-Out (hotly debated, I know). This is important to note since he has a chance to back up his decent last season with a better one while erasing the 2015/2016 season in the process.
So far he has eclipsed it. He has currently earned £63,000, including his recent qualification to the German Masters. He reached the Last 32 six times this season, his best result being losing in the decider of an epic match to eventual winner Neil Robertson in the Scottish Open and is currently 25th on the one-year money list, ahead of players such as Michael White, Ben Woollaston and even compatriot Zhou Yuelong. It feels such a while such he was No. 19. He’s not completely announced his comeback by reaching a ranking final, but his consistency is paying off.
Stuart Carrington – Start Rank: 46; Current Rank: 55
I did have high hopes for Carrington, who showed signs of promise last season, especially when he made three Crucible centuries in a row against Liang Wenbo back in April. Unfortunately for Stuart, he’s had quite an ordinary season. He reached the Last 32 three times this season and hasn’t progressed past this stage since the 2017 Welsh Open. At £21,500 so far this season, less than the likes of Peter Lines, Gerard Greene, and Aditya Mehta. As harsh as it is to say, but if you cannot outperform a majority of the bottom 64 players, that’s not good enough.
However, Stuart is more of a long-match player and I’m sure he will take extra care in the World Championships where there is a lot more money to be made. At least at his end, there are many players in his position such as Alfie Burden and Rory McLeod.
Yan Bingtao – Start Rank: 56; Current Rank: 26
Well. Thankfully I don’t need to explain in great detail how brilliant he is this season.
I think we all knew he was going to be big but I doubt too many people expected him to shine as he has done this season. He only lost his first round match for the first time in the German Masters, so that clearly means he is obviously out of his depth. 🙂
Now China’s No. 3 in the world, he’s reached one final, one semi-final, reached the Last 16 once and the Last 32 three times. He was so close to becomes the youngest person ever to win a ranking title until Mark Williams stole the Alex Higgins Trophy from him in the decider. He has risen 30 places to No. 26, higher than Alan McManus and former World Champion Graeme Dott and who knows – it’s likely we can see a turned-18-year-old in the Masters in 2019 at this rate!
John Astley: Start Rank: 77; Current Rank: 67
John Astley’s season is a strange case. Having done so well last season and giving himself a great advantage to break into the Top 64, you’d expect either a Yan Bingtao-resurgence or collapsing under the pressure of being so close yet so far. When top players withdraw from events, he is one of the first players to move up the table and play a lower-ranking opponent, which is huge for survival.
His season has been fairly mixed. Let’s look at the negatives: he has lost more matches than he has won – 13 out of 23 matches in fact. Looking at the matches he lost, you can’t help feeling they are missed opportunities, such as losing to Yuan Sijun, Michael Georgiou and Liam Highfield. Two particular losses where he lost to Barry Hawkins having been 4-0 up and to Scott Donaldson in the UK Championship where £5,000 went begging, has got to hurt.
However, all is of course not lost! £26,100 is a very decent amount to earn as he reached the Last 32 twice and he caught up with then-No. 65 Scott Donaldson who hadn’t won until the UK Championship. His chances of staying on tour seem to be quite high, providing David Grace, Sam Baird and Daniel Wells continue to struggle. But this is where it gets interesting – no-one could have foreseen Cao Yupeng coming back from the dead and stealing a spot in the Top 64 when considering his torrid performance last season, was not rightfully his. This puts Astley into a huge dogfight with a lot of struggling players as well as Donaldson and Zhang Anda who don’t want to start at 0 points next season or worse, go through Q School again. These are tough times indeed!
Alexander Ursenbacher: Start Rank: N/A; Current Rank: 83
He won just four matches in his first two-year stint and I picked him as one of my ones to watch because of his EBSA European Under-21 Snooker Championship win and reaching the final World Championship qualifying round as an amateur. So second time lucky as a professional hmm?
Initially, he did brilliantly. Before the English Open, he reached the Last 32 twice in the Riga Masters and Indian Open, beating Andrew Higginson and Jamie Jones in the process and clearly showed his scoring prowess by thrashing Elliot Slessor 4-0 by 407 points to 4. But this was before the English Open. Every opponent is ranked higher than him bar one and received a lot of plaudits from Shaun Murphy who he beat 4-1 and Michael White praised his long potting who he whitewashed in the quarter-finals. Eventually, he was beaten 6-3 by Kyren Wilson but this is still a lovely achievement for a 21 year-old.
https://twitter.com/MattSelt/status/921484387262304256
Since then, however, he has gone rapidly downhill. The Swiss ace hasn’t even won a match since the English Open and though he was playing John Higgins on a regular basis, he is starting to lose his monentum and to other opponents, they are starting to see chinks in his armour. Already out of the German Masters, his next tournaments are the Snooker Shoot-Out and presumably whenever the China Open qualifiers are. He’s got another year of course, but he now has time to tweak his game in time.
Soheil Vahedi – Start Rank: N/A; Current Rank: 117
He has been slightly unlikely this season and no, it’s not because of visas this time. He was won just four out of his eighteen matches and they are against decent opponents, such as Martin Gould, Sam Baird, and Mike Dunn. However, he cannot win in deciders. He’s been involved in five deciders and has one just one of them. Unfortunately, snooker can be a very cruel game and he hasn’t received any points for that. It’s sad, since he had a number of deciders against many opponents in his run of winning the 2016 World Amateur Snooker Championship, so does that mean he is a fish out of water?
Yuan Sijun – Start Rank: N/A; Current Rank: 104
China’s gifted 17-year-old Yuan has made a slow start in his first years as a professional and perhaps this is not surprising. He has had so much success in the Far East where he was groomed for stardom that it must take a while to transfer his form to England, similar problems that Vahedi might be experiencing. Still, as a first timer, every match is vital towards broadening a player’s experience and there is no better place to do it in the deep end. He got some quite high-profile scalps – Zhang Anda, Joe Perry, and Shaun Murphy are damn good for a teenager, as shown below:
Have to be honest……I can’t play much better than I played today. Unfortunately I lost. Massive congrats to Yuan SiJun #onetowatch pic.twitter.com/kP1g89810D
— Shaun Murphy (@Magician147) October 12, 2017
Most recently, he was close to beating Judd Trump too, but failed to progress to Germany after being beaten by the Ace in the Pace 5-4. There are lots to come for the youngster, trust me.
