2016 China Open

[mikeyd100]

Oh yeah haha, saw your post re the ball cleaning thing.
I agree, seen several players do it too.

Who said its a gentlemans game eh

[Erwan_BZH]

Walden is through to the semis after thrashing Bingo 5-1. Higgins is there too after beating Noppon Saengkham in a strange game. Higgo was cruising 4-0 before the Thai made a comeback in the middle of a flurry of unforced errors from both players. Quite a bunch of shocking misses.

[Billy]

What was mark kings tweets about?

I don't SN, but from what I can gather, a loud bang disrupted MK on a safety shot and he messed up, leaving Murphy in the balls. Murphy then came to the table to ask if the balls could be replaced so he could replay the shot. When the ref refused SM either turned down a pot or missed on purpose.

This is mainly guesswork from what I've read, so I may be mistaken.

[Erwan_BZH]

This is what Mark King said indeed, that Murphy missed his red on purpose. Class act...

[Erwan_BZH]

There he goes! Maguire wins 5-1 on Alfie Burden to clinch back his top 16 position! Ding will have to go through the quals......:/ Sad for him!

[cally]

Ah, I see thanks for that billy..

[Billy]

You're welcome, Cally.

Sad for Ding, as you say, Erwan. One would hope a player of his class will come through without any problems, but then again, him dropping out of the top 16 wasn't something I saw happening either.

[cally]

Ding hascdropped out of the top 16? Wow.. Wouldn't have thought that a few seasons back, eh!

Expected him to have had a WC under his belt by now ...

[Odrl]

I managed to watch all four matches today. Trump-King was my favourite. King did amazingly well to hang in there and almost took it to a decider, and the same with Saengkham against Higgins.

I wonder if today was Trump's "poor" match. It will only get tougher for him over the weekend, with his two bogey players still in the tournament. :smile:

[mikeyd100]

Ding hascdropped out of the top 16? Wow.. Wouldn't have thought that a few seasons back, eh!

Expected him to have had a WC under his belt by now ...

Mention of ding here : http://www.worldsnooker.com/maguire-...rucible-place/

[thecueview]

Day 3 review...

http://www.thecueview.com/2016-china...ls-review.html

[Odrl]

It should be a good day tomorrow. There are no real underdogs in the semi-finals, which is rare for major tournaments this season.

John Higgins and Ricky Walden have met very few times over the years, a little surprising for two players who have been in the top16 for quite some time now (almost an eternity in Higgins' case). I actually remember their first two meetings. It was in the 2004, when I was just going from a casual viewer to a real snooker fanatic, and Higgins was one of my favourite players to watch. He was actually going through a fairly weak period of his career, I think he had not won a ranking title for something like three years. He was a big favourite against Walden in the 1st round of the Grand Prix, but lost the match despite making a 147, which was also the first 147 I saw "live" as it happened. He then went on to win the last-ever British Open, before losing to Walden again in his opening match at the UK Championship. Walden impressed me at the time, but it took him longer than I expected to rise up the rankings and start winning tournaments. Both players had some good moments today (or should I say yesterday?), and I hope they can give us a good match in the morning. Slight edge to Higgins perhaps.

Judd Trump and Stephen Maguire have a lot more history between them, and it's Maguire who has the better record, although Trump did win their most recent match at the Masters this season. It's usually high quality when they play, so I'm looking forward to it. Trump was impressive in his first two matches this week, but found it much more difficult against a very resilient King today. He has a habit of playing his best snooker in the early rounds these days, so hopefully he still has something left for the weekend. Maguire did what he needed to do to get into the top16, so he can now relax and go for the title. He rejected the suggestion that he had an easy draw this week, which is the correct thing to do I suppose, but it is true that Trump will be the first really strong opponent for him here, so we will see whether he has the form to compete with the very best. Trump should be the favourite on paper, but for some reason I get the feeling Maguire could win this one.

As I said, it should be a good day. :smile:

[Tommykiid]

2016 China Open

would love to see higgins take it ....... and roll on the world championship

[touchingball]

did i just hear them right on Eurosport saying that all of Ricky Walden's ranking wins have come in China? Strange how some players travel much better than others. This semi is heating up nicely between him and Higgins. Would love to see Ricky make another final.

[Billy]

I managed to watch all four matches today. Trump-King was my favourite.

Mark should have had Jud yesterday, but he simply squandered too many good chances.

The commentators' praise of the 'crowds' is making me laugh, talking about how respectful they are because there are no mobile phones going off. Do you think the lack of mobile phones going off has anything to do with the lack of people?