UK Championship 25/11 - 7/12

[scottley]

Just special, stuck for words!

[dcrackers147]

Maybe now people like Matt Selt will learn just as Judd has and ROS did years prior before playing Hendry...Don't shoot your mouth off even in retaliation unless you are going to back it up. You know ROS will. It's worse coming from someone like Selt as he is nothing more than a financially privileged journeyman pro!

[daffie]

Last evening's sessions didn't do much for me unfortunately. Very little excitement, drama or tense moments nor close matches. We had a 147, that was rather good A good win for Maguire who did struggle a bit from frame 6 onwards, but he held himself together in the end Also a very comfortable win for ROS in the end...Selt should really have put up much more of a fight...he had plenty of chances. He will be very dissapointed I'm sure.

Hopefully today's sessions, especially the evening session, will provide the drama that we have been spoiled with over the past week. Maguire - Fu could be good...if Maguire can keep his temper at bay. Dott - Bingham this afternoon has a nice ring to it as well. Unfortunately I'm afraid work will be getting in the way of snooker again during the afternoon...it's not supposed to be like that now is it

[Mellow Yellow]

was lucky enough to be there last night, even got my ugly mug on tv during the 147 :-)

I felt a bit for selt but after his tweet yesterday I knew Ronnie was going to destroy him! he missed a few easy balls early on and after that the script was written.

I took my mum with me and before we went in I joked we would see a 147, then at 4-0 up I said he will definitely be going for the max if he gets half a chance. and would you believe it he knocked one in!

very blessed to have seen it live, a night I will never forget!!

[em@rel]

I felt a bit for selt but after his tweet yesterday I knew Ronnie was going to destroy him!

I missed that. What was his tweet about ?.

[Mellow Yellow]

Matthew Selt@MattSelt
Can't wait to play my childhood hero tomorrow night! Extremely excited ��

[em@rel]

Matthew Selt@MattSelt
Can't wait to play my childhood hero tomorrow night! Extremely excited ��

Thank you.

[cyberheater]

Mathew Selt Tweet.

"Had a dream that I got spanked 6-0 and Ronald had a max... Oh wait... DOH!!!!! "

LOL.

What a fabulous 147 that was. Just watched it on youtube as my Virgin Media box decided not to record the Ronnie vs Selt match.

[DeanH]

was lucky enough to be there last night, even got my ugly mug on tv during the 147 :-)

I felt a bit for selt but after his tweet yesterday I knew Ronnie was going to destroy him! he missed a few easy balls early on and after that the script was written.

I took my mum with me and before we went in I joked we would see a 147, then at 4-0 up I said he will definitely be going for the max if he gets half a chance. and would you believe it he knocked one in!

very blessed to have seen it live, a night I will never forget!!

was that your mum in the glasses with the look of sublime ecstasy and all fingers crossed for the 147?

what a treat for you mam

[robertmac]

Hopefully there will be some close matches as
a blowout doesnt make for great watching.

[daffie]

Hopefully there will be some close matches as
a blowout doesnt make for great watching.

Hear Hear!

[Mellow Yellow]

was that your mum in the glasses with the look of sublime ecstasy and all fingers crossed for the 147?

what a treat for you mam

haha no not her, you have to pause it and look very closely to see us but we are there :-) when it pans to the crowd when he smashes the black in to get position on the yellow.

she said it was the best xmas pressie ever!

[Odrl]

Right, it's quarter-finals day...

It was really looking like this would be one of the best UK Championships of recent times, because so many players were playing really well, but of course it was too good to be true and quite a few struggled and got knocked out in the last couple of days. So, eight players remain. Two of them are outsiders at this stage, and there are a couple of others who would not have been among the immediate favourites at the start of the tournament. This is an excellent chance for all of them to really do something here. :smile:

Let's see what we have...

Stuart Bingham v. Graeme Dott: This will be my choice for the afternoon session. The last seven major ranking quarter-finals Dott played in were all in China, so it's good to see him back in form in a UK event as well. He played some superb snooker in his last two matches. He whitewashed Robert Milkins 6-0 with three centuries, and Milkins only scored 28 points in the whole match. Dott then almost did something similar to Robertson as well, as he outscored him convincingly in the first half of the match to lead 5-0. A 6-0 win would have looked impressive, 6-5 less so, but Robertson really did play well in the second half of the match, and it's a credit to Dott that he held his nerve and came through in the decider. His long potting has been really impressive, and he is playing extremely fast this week and very efficiently for the most part. Bingham also had a 6-0 win, over Ricky Walden, but it was a shockingly poor performance from Walden, so it remains to be seen what kind of form Bingham is really in when he is put under pressure. There is no doubt Bingham is more used to winning than Dott these days, and he already has a ranking title to his name this season. It's also interesting that these two have barely met in the major events, and in fact have not met at all since Bingham's rise up the rankings three seasons ago. They have only met in a couple of PTCs, with no real advantage either way. I think Dott has played the better snooker this week, so I will go for Dott to win 6-3. :wink:

Ronnie O'Sullivan v. Anthony McGill: There is no doubt O'Sullivan struggled a little in the early stages of this tournament, and he could easily have been one the players who got knocked out, but we always knew his draw was more than reasonable, and in the end he got here with four fairly comfortable wins. The other top seeds in his quarter were players that suited him, but he has avoided them anyway, and he has grown in confidence with each round now. His injury has also got better, so he now probably finds himself as the favourite to win this tournament. Matthew Selt had a lot of chances to put him under pressure yesterday, but failed to do so, and it's doubtful whether McGill can do any better. It's already been a great week for McGill, his first quarter-final in a major tournament, if we dismiss the best-of-7 stuff in India last season. His performance against Higgins was alright, but nothing special, and he probably would have lost if Higgins was a little bit better. But McGill has now got through four really close matches here, so he has been under a lot of pressure and still made it, and I'm sure he is ready for the fight today. Having said that, he has never beaten O'Sullivan before. They played each other in the International Championship in the last two years, O'Sullivan winning 6-2 and 6-1, the latter performance being quite impressive. It's best-of-11 here again, and I reckon little has changed in the balance of power, so I will go for O'Sullivan to win 6-1. :wink:

Judd Trump v. Mark Davis: Interesting match-up. Trump has probably been the player of the week so far, with some really good scoring in most of his matches. He has made more centuries than anyone else so far, and he has battled well whenever that was required. He seems to have retained his form from the Champion of Champions, and maybe there is a little bit in reserve as well. Having said that, this is the first time he will be facing another top player, if we could call Davis that. Davis reached three major semi-finals two seasons ago, including in this tournament, he reached three major quarter-finals last season, and this season he is continuing with more of the same, with a semi-final in Australia and at least a quarter-final here. He has gained a lot of experience at these stages of tournaments now, so there shouldn't be any major nerves. He came from 5-3 down to beat Joe Perry in the last32, so he too looks like he is up for a fight. He knocked Trump out of the Australian Open in 2011, when Trump was one of the in-form players, so he won't be afraid of him here. Trump has two major wins over Davis, 9-7 in this tournament in 2009, and another one in the 2011 China Open, a tournament Trump went on to win. Other than that they have only met in the smaller tournaments. I think Davis is a fairly easy player to predict, when he plays well he is always likely to beat the players around him or lower than him in the rankings, and sometimes top players if they are not playing really well. But whenever he plays someone who is really in form, he can't quite match them, and I think this could be the case here. Trump to win 6-3. :wink:

Marco Fu v. Stephen Maguire: My choice for the evening session. I think this is the hardest match to predict, because we have two players here who can be very inconsistent, sometimes from one day to another. Marco Fu was the only player out of 64 to get through the 1st round here without making a break over 50, and in the next match he had three centuries and won comfortably. He was lucky to get past Shaun Murphy yesterday, lucky in terms of flukes and other little bits of fortune that went his way during the match, and lucky that Murphy played a couple of really poor shots towards the end when he had the match won. But, as we know, today could be a totally different story, and Fu could produce his best snooker again. And his best snooker is pretty flawless, tremendous scoring combined with good safety and solid pressure play. This is his third major ranking quarter-final of the season, can he reach his first semi? I suppose we could repeat most of that for Maguire as well, but his inconsistency can probably be blamed more on his attitude and mental approach to matches, rather than just daily form. He has impressed this week, keeping his focus and composure most of the time, particularly against Williams, and it wasn't too bad yesterday either. He played just as well in the Wuxi Classic at the start of the season, lost a close quarter-final to Martin Gould, and seemed to lose a bit of heart for the next couple of months, so he never really gave himself a chance to win titles. But he has given himself a chance here, and this is traditionally his strongest tournament. His previous major matches against Fu are all pretty dated now, but Fu did win the biggest two, 6-4 in the 2011 Masters and 13-4 in the 2006 World Championship. I have a feeling this one will go to Maguire though, 6-4. :wink:


Should be a good day of snooker in any case.

[robertmac]

I would agree except I see Bingham taking his match.
Some great snooker tho.

[Byrom]

Great post by Ordrell again - I will go Bingham McGill Davis Fu - just to be different

Love the underdog.com