With the China Open tournament due to start this Monday, here are a few of my observations as to who might be the players to watch and who could do with a good run as the season reaches its conclusion…
Professional snooker tournaments are difficult enough to predict at the best of times but I always find the China Open to be the hardest to call on the calendar. Why? Firstly the obvious factor of jetlag and how different players adapt to the change of timezone, but also the fact that the World Championship is just three weeks away and those players involved can be forgiven for having an eye on that tournament already.
Ones to watch
Aside from the obvious (hello Ronnie), who are the players who we should be paying particular attention to this week? For me the first would be the man at the top of the draw, Peter Ebdon who like last year comes into the tournament in desperate need of a good run in order to retain his place inside the world’s top 16 for another season. It was noticeable last season in this event that those players who really needed the points such as Ebdon and Stephen Hendry were the ones who got the job done and I can see Peter going on a similar run in 2010.
First up for him will be Judd Trump who (also like last year), will arrive in China knowing that he will not be involved at the Crucible and presumably looking forward to the summer. Last year he did not handle this well, losing 5-3 to wildcard Tang Jun and given what is at stake for Peter this time around, he will do well to win and keep his run going in 2010.
Another man in real danger of losing his top 16 place is 2008 Championship League winner Joe Perry and he will open his campaign against either local wildcard Shi Shuamgyang or more likely, Malta’s Tony Drago who has already won an impressive 16 matches during this season. Given the torrid past 15 months that Joe has recently experienced many will be fancying an upset here but taking into account Tony’s lack of recent experience on the big stage and Joe’s need for ranking points, I suspect that the seed will manage to defy the formbook and come through. I do however fear that it may come too late for him to save his top 16 place…
Where might the other upsets come from?
Before this week I may have tipped Bjorn Haneveer to pull something out of the bag against Marco Fu, an opponent who has struggled for a while now during the ranking events. His triumph in the Championship League however might just give him the lift that he needs to recapture the form that got him into the world’s top eight and judging by how he finished off Mark Allen on Thursday I would be surprised to see him slip up against Bjorn.
He might clearly enjoy his snooker at the Newport Centre but Ali Carter is a player who has never quite got to grips with the tournaments over in China, often losing early on and this time he comes up against Rory McLeod, always an opponent that you will have to scrape off the table. Given the disappointing manner in which he lost out to Gerard Greene at the recent World Championship qualifiers however, I would be impressed to see Rory bounce back immediately against a player as talented as Carter.
One man who does enjoy China however is Ryan Day, a finalist in Shanghai back in 2007 and a semi-finalist in Beijing for the past two seasons. Robert Milkins will certainly be a tricky opening round opponent but if he can come through that one then a tie with Stephen Hendry who he recently defeated for the first time at Newport awaits and Ryan will be confident of another good run here.
It is a similar story for Graeme Dott, a former winner in Beijing and a player who I fancy to come through against Mark Allen who will still be suffering from how he lost out to Marco Fu in the Championship League final last week. If Allen can put that out of his mind so soon and come through against Graeme then I will be very impressed…
What of the provisonal world number one John Higgins and current number one Ronnie O’Sullivan? Prior to the Welsh I suspected that despite being the two best players in the world at present, they might relax to an extent due to the nature of the event but as they both moved effortlessly into the semi-finals it was clear that I was wrong on that account! Looking at the draw here I would not be particularly surprised if the same were to happen again here, although I do fancy the returning to form Mark Williams to do well and have a feeling that he could defeat one, if not two of John and Ronnie…
To view the draw please click here.