China Open 2018 - £1 million prize money

[Hal]

Good stuff from Selby this morning, beginning to look a bit like his old self again. :smile:

That said, Williams didn't really put up as much resistance as I expected. He lost a couple of frames where both players had chances, so things could have been a little close had he taken those...

He scored at least 5 total clearances this tournament, can't remember any other event player achieved this. Well played to him, sad for MJW though.

[JimMalone]

With Mark Williams' defeat we now know that Judd Trump will be the #4 seed at the World Championship.

[blahblah01]

Oh Jack........

[blahblah01]

Brilliant end to this if you like to watch the Pro's bottling it, missing easy pots and playing wrong shots....

[crocodile]

So our quarterfinals are:
Mark Selby - Mark Williams
Jack Lisowski - Kyren Wilson
Neil Robertson - Stuart Bingham
Barry Hawkins - Tom Ford

Quite a nice line-up I think.
My picks for this one:
Selby
Wilson
Robertson
Hawkins

Congratulations!

I thought Robertson'd win too, but I'm not sure that I expected him to apply a coat of whitewash to poor old Bingo .... That said, he'll probably now go and crash out to Hawkins in the semis ....

[crocodile]

Brilliant end to this if you like to watch the Pro's bottling it, missing easy pots and playing wrong shots....

That's the prerogative of professionals ....

[Odrl]

I've just caught up with this afternoon's matches... What a masterclass of breakbuilding that was from Robertson, surely one of the best performances anyone's produced all season.

Good win for Wilson as well from behind, but he was a little lucky that Lisowski played so poorly under pressure. He can't count on the same against Selby tomorrow. :smile:

[Odrl]

Quick predictions for tomorrow's matches...

Judging by what we saw today, I think Selby and Robertson are clear favourites to reach the final. I will try to watch both matches if I can, but I think Selby-Wilson is the one I will concentrate on, because it promises to be a really hard fought battle. Selby played some of his best snooker of the season in his last two matches, and we know he is likely to raise his game even further at the weekend. Wilson had more trouble today, but he has the fighting qualities to stick to Selby over two sessions and perhaps give him a little more trouble than he did in the World Championship two seasons ago. He found himself 4-0 behind today, but then completely kept Lisowski away from the table in the following three frames as he made three high breaks. In the end he was a little lucky to get over the line, but he will probably be more relaxed tomorrow when he won't have the pressure of being the favourite. Still, I think Selby will prove to be a few frames stronger in the end.

Perhaps I am unwise to dismiss Hawkins' chances tomorrow... We know he tends to play his best snooker in the longer matches, and he produced what was probably the best performance of his career to knock Robertson out of the World Championship three years ago, but I wasn't impressed by how he just barely survived against Ford today. He has a habit of making things difficult for himself, either by going behind early on in matches, then clawing his way back in the second half, or by getting ahead and then failing to get over the line smoothly. I don't think Robertson is in the mood to get involved in a nervy and scrappy match at the moment, certainly not if he can produce a similar scoring display as today. But then again, he is not very consistent from one day to another, so you never know...

Selby to win 9-7, Robertson to win 9-5. :smile:

No more short matches this season, I think a little celebration is in order. :wink:

[OmaMiesta]

My money is on Wilson for this tournament

[cesard]

But if the final is Best-of-21 it's definitely a (small) step into the right direction.

http://www.thesnookerforum.co.uk/boa...283#post959283

[JimMalone]

Quick predictions for tomorrow's matches...

Judging by what we saw today, I think Selby and Robertson are clear favourites to reach the final. I will try to watch both matches if I can, but I think Selby-Wilson is the one I will concentrate on, because it promises to be a really hard fought battle. Selby played some of his best snooker of the season in his last two matches, and we know he is likely to raise his game even further at the weekend. Wilson had more trouble today, but he has the fighting qualities to stick to Selby over two sessions and perhaps give him a little more trouble than he did in the World Championship two seasons ago. He found himself 4-0 behind today, but then completely kept Lisowski away from the table in the following three frames as he made three high breaks. In the end he was a little lucky to get over the line, but he will probably be more relaxed tomorrow when he won't have the pressure of being the favourite. Still, I think Selby will prove to be a few frames stronger in the end.

Perhaps I am unwise to dismiss Hawkins' chances tomorrow... We know he tends to play his best snooker in the longer matches, and he produced what was probably the best performance of his career to knock Robertson out of the World Championship three years ago, but I wasn't impressed by how he just barely survived against Ford today. He has a habit of making things difficult for himself, either by going behind early on in matches, then clawing his way back in the second half, or by getting ahead and then failing to get over the line smoothly. I don't think Robertson is in the mood to get involved in a nervy and scrappy match at the moment, certainly not if he can produce a similar scoring display as today. But then again, he is not very consistent from one day to another, so you never know...

Selby to win 9-7, Robertson to win 9-5. :smile:

No more short matches this season, I think a little celebration is in order. :wink:

The matches are already underway for a long time, but my predictions would have been the same as yours. Wins for Selby and Hawkins. Though as it's Best-of-19 I would have rather gone with 10-6 for Selby and 10-7 for Robertson.

So far Selby is playing good stuff again (as I write this he makes a rare mistake on a long pot), though not on point with most of his safeties and Wilson makes a bit to many errors.

Can't see the other match, but Hawkins seems to be quite clinical when in the balls and leads 4-3.

And yes: No short matches more, this is the best part of the season.

[JimMalone]

Since yesterday we already know more seedings for the World Championship.

#11 Marco Fu
#12 Stuart Bingham
#13 Luca Brecel
#14 Anthony McGill
#15 Ali Carter
#16 Mark Allen

[Bigmeek]

Jim, I see a few names appearing in the draw for the qualifiers. Is this a seeded draw?
Is it possible to work out who plays who at this stage? Matches kick off next week.

[JimMalone]

Jim, I see a few names appearing in the draw for the qualifiers. Is this a seeded draw?

Yes, there are 128 players entering qualifying. Half of them, the players sitting between 17 and 80 in the World Rankings, are seeded, while the rest (their first round opponents) are drawn randomly.
The seeding is also complete that way that in Section 1 there will be the top seed, #17 Ryan Day. He has #80 (the least seeded player) Mitchell Mann in a potential second round. Then would meet either #48 or #49 (meaning the least ranked player of the second tier of seeds from #33-48 or the highest of the third tier, meaning seeds #49-64).

In the second section there is #32 Zhou Yuelong, the last seeded player of tier 1 (ranks #17-32) and he has #65 Daniel Wells, the highest seeded player of tier 4, in a potential second round. Then would meet #33 (the highest player of the second tier of seeds) in the decisive third round.

[JimMalone]

Here are the seeds already filled in their places in the qualifiers. There are 16 "sections". The winner of each of this sections qualifies for the Main Event.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_W...hip#Qualifying