Guess who?
Day One from Crondon Park and although tonight’s darts final was the topic of conversation backstage, the real action took place on the two tables…
As an aside, the full draw for the German Masters was also released today and can be accessed here.
Since the first staging of the Championship League back in 2008 if one man has been almost an ever present it is Ali Carter, the Shanghai Masters champion having been involved in 14 of the 21 regular groups held so far. While he has never quite been able to make it through to that elusive winners group, he has earned more than his fair share of cash from the event and took a bit more today with three wins from three against Stephen Maguire, Mark Selby and Graeme Dott.
Elsewhere it was a pretty mixed bag for the remaining six players as points were shared and sitting in a tie for second place are John Higgins, Shaun Murphy and Mark Selby, though the latter two have both played a game more than most. Shaun though should be pretty pleased with his day’s work as having lost his opener against Selby, he looked set for another defeat against Mark Williams in his second match but came back from well behind in each of the three frames that he won to take it in a decider. Another victory against Higgins followed before defeat to Graeme Dott in his final match left him with two wins from four at the end of the day.
For Graeme though that was his only win of the day as he slipped up against fellow Scots John Higgins and Stephen Maguire whilst also losing against the Captain Ali Carter.
Unfortunately I will be back at work tomorrow so updates will not be as frequent as today but a good way to follow the day’s action will be via the Matchroom Sport Twitter.
To view the table as it stands, please click here.
Monday Results from Matchroom Sport:
John Higgins 3-0 Mark Williams
71-8, 133-0 (Higgins 104), 64-49 (Higgins 49)
Shaun Murphy 0-3 Mark Selby
0-124 (Selby 124), 54-68 (Murphy 30, Selby 51), 2-69 (Selby 68)
Stephen Maguire 2-3 Ali Carter
24-93 (Carter 85), 74-8 (Maguire 64), 4-77 (Carter 34), 68-5 (Maguire 60), 1-87 (Carter 81)
Graeme Dott 2-3 John Higgins
62-20 (Dott 46), 36-71, 33-83 (Dott 33, Higgins 83), 72-44 (Dott 54, Higgins 37), 14-82 (Higgins 47)
Mark Williams 2-3 Shaun Murphy
119-0 (Williams 119), 60-71 (Williams 60, Murphy 71), 69-16 (Williams 68), 55-76 (Williams 49, Murphy 76), 37-89 (Murphy 88)
Mark Selby 1-3 Ali Carter
83-35 (Selby 30, 36), 24-64 (Carter 56), 0-69 (Carter 46), 0-101 (Carter 101)
Stephen Maguire 3-1 Graeme Dott
0-137 (Dott 137), 68-36 (Maguire 35), 51-49 (Maguire 50), 70-0 (Maguire 69)
Shaun Murphy 3-1 John Higgins
35-64, 69-58 (Murphy 48), 100-24 (Murphy 52, 48), 67-65 (Murphy 67, Higgins 65)
Mark Williams 3-1 Mark Selby
0-135 (Selby 135), 70-12 (Williams 34), 75-0 (Williams 75), 79-0 (Williams 50)
Ali Carter 3-0 Graeme Dott
63-22 (Carter 63), 73-9 (Carter 72), 67-53 (Carter 62)
Shaun Murphy 2-3 Graeme Dott
32-70 (Dott 70), 59-23 (Murphy 45), 11-72 (Dott 30), 106-0 (Murphy 101), 9-70 (Dott 32)
Mark Selby 3-2 Stephen Maguire
61-20 (Selby 60), 1-110 (Maguire 57, 42), 23-55, 77-11 (Selby 31, 32), 58-6 (Selby 41)