2019 Masters

[DeanH]

well that match had nearly everything, and for once I enjoyed watching a Selby match

[the_unrepentant]

Its crazy how a player of Selby's standard can just struggle so much. I mean to the point where he was predictably going to miss or play a bad safety. It goes to show how difficult this game is if you are not naturally gifted at it. Then again, I am not a natural at playing the guitar but its my full time job and I don't expect to be amazing one evening and utter rubbish the next. I do worry Selby won't get himself out of this as he is battling with himself over something.

[Cue crafty]

Its crazy how a player of Selby's standard can just struggle so much. I mean to the point where he was predictably going to miss or play a bad safety. It goes to show how difficult this game is if you are not naturally gifted at it. Then again, I am not a natural at playing the guitar but its my full time job and I don't expect to be amazing one evening and utter rubbish the next. I do worry Selby won't get himself out of this as he is battling with himself over something.

I agree. I think there's more to his form problems than we maybe know. His mind seems to be elsewhere.

He made a throw away jest the other day about his wife probably being happy to get rid of him for a while so I hope all is well there and it was just a joke. DT also said he had a quick word with him in the interval of his match with Mags. He told DT he felt very nervous in the first couple of frames but said he was going to pull himself together because he should be enjoying playing in the Masters.

Nerves and insecurity are not really things I've ever associated with Mark. More nerves of steel and burning desire!

[arsalanjami]

i was quite gutted for that WSC 2017 quarterfinal, now i can smell sweet sweet revenge :biggrin-new:

That Ronnie vs Ding is one of my favourite all time matches - Can never get enough of it!

[arsalanjami]

Go Robo!!!

[vilkrang]

Really wish Jan Verhass would calm down, the crowd aren't even that bad and he's hushing them every other time they cheer. The atmosphere at The Masters is part of it, let them have a bit of fun for goodness sake, it's not happening when people are down on the shot.

[DeanH]

2019 Masters

frame 3 for Hawkins after Robbo's 5 in a row

[Cue crafty]

Well Robo cop was functioning well tonight, no non-smoking infringements. He really pipes that cue action straight when his tail is up. Good stuff.

[peterpackage]

Tournament after tournament, players i don't care for beat my favourites

In this tournament, i'm in the enviable situation that 4 of my favourite players are in the semi finals (muppets like Selby, higgins, hawkins, Allen etc long gone)

Out of Ding, Ronnie, judd and Robbo i honestly do not care who wins, happy with any, and do not care who makes the final.

It's going to be joyous win win snooker for me for the rest of this tournament

[peterpackage]

Really wish Jan Verhass would calm down, the crowd aren't even that bad and he's hushing them every other time they cheer. The atmosphere at The Masters is part of it, let them have a bit of fun for goodness sake, it's not happening when people are down on the shot.

Yeah it's a tough one, Snooker has this reputation for needing ridiculous levels of silence and the players now expect it.

Snooker is never going to be like the darts, but a bit of cheering inbetween shots to me is ok, but i think they want to retain this ballet/opera like eliteist snobby exclusive atmosphere, no riff raff allowed

[vilkrang]

Yeah it's a tough one, Snooker has this reputation for needing ridiculous levels of silence and the players now expect it.

Snooker is never going to be like the darts, but a bit of cheering inbetween shots to me is ok, but i think they want to retain this ballet/opera like eliteist snobby exclusive atmosphere, no riff raff allowed

The Master's has been a bit more boisterous for nearly as long as I can remember. Most refs will try to calm things down if it gets a bit much but he was telling them to shut up every time someone said "Come on Neil/Come on Barry".

I get it if they are down on the shot but that wasn't the case last night, most of the time anyway.

Tournament after tournament, players i don't care for beat my favourites

In this tournament, i'm in the enviable situation that 4 of my favourite players are in the semi finals (muppets like Selby, higgins, hawkins, Allen etc long gone)

Out of Ding, Ronnie, judd and Robbo i honestly do not care who wins, happy with any, and do not care who makes the final.

It's going to be joyous win win snooker for me for the rest of this tournament

It's great when that happens. I'd like to see a Ronnie - Trump final but wouldn't begrudge Ding or Robbo a win either. Going to enjoy this weekend!

[Mark187187]

From what I could gather, it sounded like there was one person responsible for the distracting noise- Jan asked the security to locate them after warnings over the course of a couple of frames. I've yet to see a match at the Masters evening session, where there isn't at least one drunk idiot annoying the players or people sat around them.

[vilkrang]

From what I could gather, it sounded like there was one person responsible for the distracting noise- Jan asked the security to locate them after warnings over the course of a couple of frames. I've yet to see a match at the Masters evening session, where there isn't at least one drunk idiot annoying the players or people sat around them.

Fair enough if it was something not caught on the television audio as I couldn't hear anything out of the ordinary.

[Odrl]

A superb semi-final line-up, with four players who are all very much capable of playing world-class snooker and winning this tournament. I couldn't really have wished for anything better. :smile:

Ronnie O'Sullivan v. Ding Junhui: O'Sullivan has to be the favourite in this one. Ding's most recent major title is the World Open in September of 2017, and O'Sullivan has won eight reasonably big titles since then, which just shows the disparity between the two players in terms of recent success. O'Sullivan has been in a group of three or four players who have shared most of the big titles between them over the past year and a bit, while Ding hasn't really been a consistent threat in the later stages of tournaments in this time. Then there is also the head-to-head record, which is heavily in favour of O'Sullivan, with Ding clearly struggling to control his nerves when facing him on the big stage a few times in the past. That said, Ding does have a few big wins against him, mostly notably in the 2017 World Championship, it's just a question whether he is capable of playing to that kind of standard at this point in time. He got a bit lucky to get over the line against Brecel, surviving a couple of scoring chances for his opponent in the decider, and I said at the time that he would need to be a lot sharper to beat O'Sullivan. O'Sullivan himself could have been in trouble against Day, had the match gone 4-4 the way it should have done, but I always felt he would come through in the end, as he seems to be very solid and composed in close matches these days. Even if Ding matches him in scoring today, which he is certainly capable of when he is at his best, he is not really potting the difficult balls at the moment, and I can't see O'Sullivan conceding too many easy chances. O'Sullivan to win 6-3.

Judd Trump v. Neil Robertson: The head-to-head is much closer in this great rivalry, but once you take out all the short-format stuff, it turns out that Trump has won the vast majority of their matches on the big stage, including a couple of finals. Most of the time it's been close-fought and high-quality stuff though, not least in this tournament three years ago when they made six centuries between them in the QF. Trump has been playing the more consistent snooker of the two in recent months, but he only has one relatively minor title to show for it, whereas Robertson has underperformed in most tournaments, with an occasional strong week like he had in Riga and Daqing. Even looking at this week's performance alone, this match is tough to call. Robertson had to come from behind a couple of times, but he did so with some very impressive snooker, whereas Trump dominated both of his first two matches, but he hasn't really been put under any pressure yet in this tournament. I would perhaps give Robertson a slight edge when it comes to playing on the big stage and under pressure, but I think Trump is the more likely of the two to find his best game here, and playing Robertson always seems to bring out the best in him for some reason. Trump to win 6-4.


It should be a good day of snooker, and I think we are guaranteed a great final whatever happens today. :smile:

[Jimmy Brown Sauce]

Anyone know why Ronnie hasn’t got a sponsor?