Friday night and the last eight draw for the World Open is now known. Click below to see who the likes of O’Sullivan and Williams have drawn…
The draw is as follows:
Quarter-Finals:
Peter Ebdon v Martin Gould/Stephen Lee
Stephen Maguire v Ronnie O’Sullivan
Ricky Walden v Neil Robertson/Andrew Higginson
Mark Williams v Ding Junhui
The stand-out tie for me there has to be the last one between arguably the two form players so far this week, Mark Williams and Ding Junhui. The pair have met a few times recently, Ding winning en route to the final of the Grand Prix last season while Mark gained his revenge in China. On balance I would expect Mark to win this one, having seen him look almost back to his best against some fine opponents this week, but a victory for Ding would not constitute a surprise either.
Close behind that is the match between Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stephen Maguire, O’Sullivan having looked sharp enough with wins over Mark King, Jimmy White and today Stephen Hendry, while Maguire has not looked quite so comfortable, edging out Judd Trump before easing past countryman Alan McManus. O’Sullivan has to be the favourite here, particularly as it has been a while since Stephen had a good win against a really top player, but you never know.
The other two ties are harder to call due to the fact that we do not quite know who will contest them but given his form so far this week I suspect that Martin Gould will be fancying his chances of possibly his best run to date. Stephen Lee however is an experienced campaigner and is no gimme. Whoever wins though will fancy their chances against Peter Ebdon who for me has been relatively unimpressive so far, although with his experience he could yet find something.
Finally what of the world champion Neil Robertson? Should he see off Andrew Higginson tonight as I would just about expect, he will face a fight against Ricky Walden who today shocked Jamie Cope with a 3-0 win to keep himself in the draw. A ranking event winner already, he could be a dark horse this week…