German Masters 2016 Qualifiers

[PatBlock]

Slow cloth, bad bounces, kicks, the white not behaving as you'd expect.

A simple (but bad) anology would be Roger Federer playing somebody in mud. He'd lose any advantage he had. All his extra skill would be pointless. Yeah absolutely, somebody has got to win, but nobody cares who has won now surely?

I don't know why people get so touchy when people mention conditions. These are top level sportspeople that have dedicated their life to their field. Why not have perfect conditions?

A brain surgeon would expect anything within his control be perfect, so he can use all the skill he's got. I wouldn't be very happy if the theatre was set up pretty good, but not great, and the surgeon was told to 'adapt' to the conditions.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't male sense to me, a more experienced and supposedly more talented player should be able to hold his own regardless of conditions. If they loose it's simply because they were not good enough on the day, it happens.

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[PatBlock]

Nap on the cloth and pockets sharper than those on the BBC seems to be a great leveller.

Maybe this is what they mean by 'terrible conditions'?

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[trains]

Gentlemen Joe lost.
That puts a dampener on Weihnachten and Neujahrstag festivities for his fans in Germany I suppose.

[PatBlock]

Top 16 (or top 8 if being tight) have earned the right to be in any tournament, can you imagine making Jordan Speith being made to go through US Open qualifying a few weeks ahead at a remote venue?? The sponsors and fans are getting a rough deal if the best players aren't in the field. The German Masters is a 32 man event so the rest play for the 16 available spots and the TV, fans and sponsors are guaranteed some names.

You could well be right and maybe this current system isn't good for the game, bums on seats wise, but it's what we have atm in Barry's brave new world and all the winging about 'conditions' and 'boring opponents' when things don't go the way of the favourite is becomming very tiresome. C'mon guys at least have the dignity to give the opponnent credit where credit's due.

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[dieselman147]

Nap on the cloth and pockets sharper than those on the BBC seems to be a great leveller.

I think this is probably correct. The top players shouldn't be there though. Ronnie Osullivan wanted to play in the German Masters 2016 so spent the weekend in wigan battling against low ranked pros on these tables with no atmosphere what so ever and didnt qualify walking away with 1500 quid. Im sure this will encourage him to play in more events and im sure the sponsors will be over the moon to have stuart Carrington on the main table instead. No offence to stuart at all.

[trains]

9 of the top 20 were knocked out before the last 32 stage of the UK Championship a few weeks ago,it didn't seem to get anyone's attention then,moving on. :wink:

[itsnoteasy]

For me it's probably a mental thing for the top pros, they dont want to be there in the first place, then maybe get a couple of bad kicks and the head drops a wee bit and that's where they lose their advantage, a poor analogy would be a better football team being knocked out on the old wet Wednesday night in February at a lower league club, no one is saying they are worse players but they dont want to be there and are playing a team that for them it is their final.
Add to that the short format and I think some are not up for the fight all the time, coupled with the travel and ptc events and you can't be at your best every tourney.
Also I can't think of any other sport where the top seeds don't get some sort of exemption.

[sealer]

I think it is wrong to think that the top players are so much better. They had more success but this is snooker and anyone can win on the day. There you go. Competition.

[motorhead]

For me it's probably a mental thing for the top pros, they dont want to be there in the first place, then maybe get a couple of bad kicks and the head drops a wee bit and that's where they lose their advantage, a poor analogy would be a better football team being knocked out on the old wet Wednesday night in February at a lower league club, no one is saying they are worse players but they dont want to be there and are playing a team that for them it is their final.
Add to that the short format and I think some are not up for the fight all the time, coupled with the travel and ptc events and you can't be at your best every tourney.
Also I can't think of any other sport where the top seeds don't get some sort of exemption.

Good points there.

[mikeyd100]

Ronnie just got beaten 5-3 by Stuart Carrington.........okay.......

Wow yes, some big players out now.

[luke-h]

some of the balls missed in these qualifiers would have flown in on the last bbc tournaments table.

[herbie]

Well I have watched the entire match between Ronnie and Stuart. With an impressive referee Tatiana Woollaston. I was surprised to see that Ronnie took out the balls from the pockets after the frames and brought them to the top cushion. I was even more surprised to see him wipe the side of the cushion cloth with a cloth. Then he even wiped the top of the wood cushion. Tatiana Woollaston whispered "Let me do this" twice but Ronnie ignored her and continued wiping.
In other words, I saw a Ronnie O'Sullivan who cared more about table and its conditions than about putting pressure on his opponent in the game. Did he think that it is not necessary? Or he did forget to think about this? He definitely should have thought about putting pressure on his opponent, and if he did so he should have been aware that his effort so far was not enough. So to my impression it was Ronnie's fault that he lost this match. A result of his attitude and willpower, both of which were not apropriate.
You can't win a snooker match against a professional player just by playing the boss.

[mikeyd100]

Ronnie got the balls out a lot against Hamza Akbar too. Even respotting the baulk colours, buffing the blue ball with his waistcoat.
Fair enough getting the balls out but the rest of it I'm not sure about.
( Might as well have licked the cueball like Alex Higgins used to do haha )

Then I saw the referee run a cloth all around the cushions.

Not focused really...but well done to Carrington, good win.

[DeanH]

Ronnie got the balls out a lot against Hamza Akbar too. Even respotting the baulk colours, buffing the blue ball with his waistcoat.
Fair enough getting the balls out but the rest of it I'm not sure about.
( Might as well have licked the cueball like Alex Higgins used to do haha )

Then I saw the referee run a cloth all around the cushions.
Not focused really...but well done to Carrington, good win.

seems to be a new routine for all referees, since the Gibraltar Open.

[mikeyd100]

seems to be a new routine for all referees, since the Gibraltar Open.

Never seen it before, what's the premise behind it?
To address dodgy bounces off cushions maybe?