2017 World Championship - Main Event

[Rane]

If wins this year, and he will, we should be talking about him in the same breath as O'Sullivan, Hendry, Higgins and Davis.

He's not well liked, that's the issue here.

And he's gone from being a journeyman grinder to being unbeatable in a few years. The likes of wilson should take note.

I think he has a quite big fan base, but the die hard O´Sullivan fans hate him.

[narl]

Because he's got older.

My voice is deeper now than it was 10 years ago - which was WELL after puberty, FYI.

He's saying Davis's voice has got higher pitched as he got older, not lower pitched.

[JimMalone]

Funny how once you decide to put your money down the results differ.... Lol.

That's very dangerous with those shoes.

Oh yes, I know how this works...


LOL!

[peterpackage]

If we do look at it objectively, a Ding world championship win would really make the game explode in asia. It's big now, it would become huge and the amount of mainstream asian money which would come into the sport would benefit everyone

[Cue crafty]

Because he's got older.

My voice is deeper now than it was 10 years ago - which was WELL after puberty, FYI.

https://impeccabletablemanners.files...pg?w=474&h=240

[mikeyd100]

Regards Davis's commentary - can someone please tell him that he is not getting paid for words per minute.
He just seems to babble on and on.
I do like his commentary but just needs to tune it down a notch.

[shanewba90]

Would love a Ding Higgins final
However I wouldn't mind a Ding Hawkins final either

Ding has always been a favourite of mine, and would love to see him win it this year (though he seems to do better when I don't put money on him)
Higgins I'd also like to see win it, over the last 9-12 months he seems back to his best
Hawkins 4 semi finals in 5 years, guy deserves to win it for how consistent he is, yet he's never really spoken about as a possible winner
Not a fan of Selby at all so wouldn't want to see him win it, even though I think it's his to lose

[Dark]

Quarter-Finals

Dark 4-0
JimMalone 3-1
Odrl 2-2
Stony152 2-2

JimMalone went 11-1 in the second round and quarters, missing only on Ding beating O'Sullivan. Dark went a perfect 4-0 in the quarter-finals. You guys should be betting and profiting from your very good picks.

Gambling is evil, I HATE it.

[cpserrao]

If we do look at it objectively, a Ding world championship win would really make the game explode in asia. It's big now, it would become huge and the amount of mainstream asian money which would come into the sport would benefit everyone

+1
Totally agree.

[Ronnington]

Fascinating semi-final line-up. I want a Ding-Higgins final too, with Ding to win.

Did Ronnie make it public what he said to Ding at the end of their match? Would be interesting to know what he said. I hope it was something along the lines of "You can go on and win it now"

[mikeyd100]

Fascinating semi-final line-up. I want a Ding-Higgins final too, with Ding to win.

Did Ronnie make it public what he said to Ding at the end of their match? Would be interesting to know what he said. I hope it was something along the lines of "You can go on and win it now"

Ronnie said he wanted to keep it private and its up to Ding to say.... Ding touches on it here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzuSzHJhwKM

[Dark]

I expect Selby to beat Ding and Higgins to beat Hawkins.

Selby is simply the best player in the world, it is going to be hard for anyone to beat him, however I do expect Ding to put up an extremely strong fight. So a win 17-15

Higgins is again the better player when he produces his best or close to it but there are very reasonable questions whether Higgins can produce snooker at that level for long enough to get through the tournament. If he falters then Hawkins could cause an upset but I am backing Higgins to win 17-12.

[Odrl]

I will keep it brief this time...

Mark Selby v. Ding Junhui: Looking forward to this one. Both players have shown their best game at times in this Championship. Selby's scoring in the second and final session against Fu was just ridiculous, and we know that his safety and tactics are spot on even on an average day. It's tough to imagine snooker being played any better than when Selby is at his absolute best. Of course it's difficult to keep up that kind of standard, especially for a player who has to reach an incredible level of focus and concentration for his game to come together. For Ding, things come more naturally. He looked very comfortable among the balls against O'Sullivan, keeping it simple and relying on his great positional play. He also potted better from distance than he usually does, and he outplayed O'Sullivan in the safety, which is not usually the case. He has won more matches than he's lost against Selby on the really big stage, beating him in a World Championship quarter-final and in two ranking finals in the past, while Selby has won their World final and one other ranking final. Their last match was the final of the International Championship this season, which Selby won 10-1, but it was clear that Ding's heart wasn't in it that day. Ding did win when they played in the Shanghai Masters final, so he shouldn't really be intimidated by Selby here. This one could really go either way... I think Selby is perhaps a couple of frames stronger at this point in time, so unless he's peaked too early, I think he is a slight favourite here. Selby to win 17-14.

John Higgins v. Barry Hawkins: This seems like a much less exciting prospect on paper, but of course things often work out differently in practice. As JimMalone said, it's amazing that these two have only met once on the big stage, when Higgins beat Hawkins 10-6 in the 1st round of the World Championship seven years ago. That wasn't just their only match over long distance prior to today, it was their only match longer than a best-of-7. Not a single best-of-9 match between two players who have been on the scene for ages? Amazing. In any case, Higgins has been extremely reliable in this Championship so far, really raising his game when he needed to against Allen, and winning his other two matches comfortably as well. I think he is playing his best snooker at the Crucible since 2009, probably a little better than he played in 2011 when he last managed to take the title. Hawkins is also his reliable self, getting through his matches nicely without any real fireworks. I think he was a little lucky last night though. Maguire won the first two frames to make it 9-9, then Hawkins went for a long pot, missed it, but got an incredible fluke and ended up clearing the table. He got the momentum back with that frame, and I'm not sure how the game would have gone without that slice of luck. But anyway, I don't want to further emphasize the importance of luck in snooker, because it's probably already been mentioned more than was necessary in recent days. This is a game between two players who play a nice balanced game, so we should see a little bit of everything in this match, and there's no reason the quality shouldn't be good either. I think Higgins is the better player at this point in time, so I will go for Higgins to win 17-13.

Should be a good couple of days again. :smile:

[alabadi]

Is that a record? I don't recall any other long matches where there has been as many 50+ breaks (in as many frames)?

In short matches you could get 3 centuries and a 50 in 4 frames, but over this distance, surely thats pretty unique?

the Selby V Fu match had 12 breaks over 50 in the 14 frames played. 9 were over 60 and 7 over 70 with 3 centuries over 132.
10 of these breaks were from Selby, I would say that was pretty high standard too.

[crocodile]

I expect Selby to beat Ding and Higgins to beat Hawkins.

Selby is simply the best player in the world, it is going to be hard for anyone to beat him, however I do expect Ding to put up an extremely strong fight. So a win 17-15

Higgins is again the better player when he produces his best or close to it but there are very reasonable questions whether Higgins can produce snooker at that level for long enough to get through the tournament. If he falters then Hawkins could cause an upset but I am backing Higgins to win 17-12.

I'll go the other way - Ding and Hawkins to win by roughly the same margins - among other things because neither of these two has won the tournament and I'd like to see a new name ....