2018 World Championship

[armstm]

BBC now started those f****** slow mo shots of the players after a miss. *FUMES*

[cidermaster]

That Trump Higgins match was superb they both played as snooker should be played 2-0 to Higgins in his semi now,Wilson cannot afford to go behind badly in this first session

[plague1973]

wow wow mayday mayday for Wilson. lost three finals this season first session...what has he learned.
i think his backhand to tight....but expected it to come late in match

[richiet]

I strongly think it'll be a Hawkins-Higgins final, a real one for the connoisseurs of the game.

Isn't that another way of saying it's going to be a long, boring match?

[attilahun]

It is a great line-up. Interesting fact is that the 4 semifinalist are the 5th, 6th,7th and 9th seeded players.
In the first semifinal i think Higgins will find some energy to push Wilson all the way and win the semifinal. As he said after the quarterfinal he feels great and he is not sure how many times he will have that feeling, so i think he will give everything in this match. Wilson is playing great at the moment but Higgins is not Allen, who lost his form after The Masters and never got past the second round of the World Championship in the last 8 years (except this year of course). So i think Higgins will prevail and make the final.
In the second semifinal the two players are both in great form atm. Williams was consistent all season, he won 3 tournaments (including the 6 red) and made the semis in another 2 tourneys, as for Hawkins he really likes this tournament and raises his game for the occasion. Should be a cracker and i fancy Williams to win mostly because i would love to see him winning another world title.

[Odrl]

I'm looking forward to the next couple of days. It's not the exact line-up I expected in the semi-finals, but you can't say there are any real surprises. :smile:

Wilson has often been compared to Mark Selby in recent times, and this semi-final reminds me of when Selby played Higgins in the World final back in 2007. I think the circumstances are very similar, we have a fairly young player who is strong in every aspect of the game, he fights for every ball and every frame, and he has played some excellent snooker up to this point in the tournament. On the other side we have the good old Higgins, a great champion with nothing left to prove in the game, tremendously experienced and still very solid under pressure. I think this could be a very close and exciting match, but since Higgins is not quite as sharp as he was back in 2007, I predict a different result this time. I think Wilson will compete at the business end of the match better than Trump did, so I will go for him to win 17-13.

The other match should be a close one as well. For all of Hawkins' runs to the semi-finals in recent years, he hasn't actually enjoyed much success at this stage, losing three times with virtually a session to spare. He'd always had really tough matches in the previous rounds though, whereas this year he got to the SF fairly comfortably, so he should still have some good snooker left in him. I think he is up there with Wilson as the best player of the tournament so far, so I would make him a slight favourite. Williams knows how to win these matches though... Like he said himself, he was throwing a few frames away here and there against Carter, but still came through quite well. I think he will need to tighten up against Hawkins though, because his mistakes will be punished more severely. We'll see if he can do that, but I'll go for Hawkins to win 17-14.

Bring it on. :smile:

[gavpowell]

I'd just like Wilson to get through - the other side of the final wouldn't bother me then.

[mcsilks]

I strongly think it'll be a Hawkins-Higgins final, a real one for the connoisseurs of the game.

Hawkins and Williams have surprisingly never met in one of the larger snooker tournaments but just form alone at the crucible suggests to me that the bookies have got the odds wrong in this match-up and I make Hawkins a narrow favourite here.

Higgins destroyed Wilson at the Crucible last year 13-6 and while Wilson may have improved a little since that defeat, Higgins just has too much experience for Kyren and I don't see that match being terribly close.

[crocodile]

I'd be happy to see any of these players win, but I'd like to see a Higgins-Williams final. What an achievement it would be for a 40 something to win it.

Well, I'd like to see Hawkins-Wilson - 1) because Hawkins has been deserving of the title for years and has the ability and composure to deal with any opponent on his day 2) because it'd be a first for Wilson.

For me, Williams-Higgins would be a case of the old guard reasserting itself.

That said - no doubt it'll turn out to be Hawkins-Higgins or Wilson-Williams ....

[blahblah01]

Exactly my point re Judd: he usually does, but didn't yesterday - although that Safety may be questioned by some....

[Mark187187]

Similar here: Higgins won, whereas Judd usually cracks when the hammer goes down.....

Selby\White were saying that Higgins looked tired yesterday (before the Evening Session, I think). Given that this contributed to the Selby come back (although no overnight drive to somewhere this year?) I doubt that he will win it.

I don't think Judd cracked yesterday. Out of the two he probably missed less balls under pressure, penultumate frame highlights how well he held it together. Another day he would have won. I don't think Wilson will put Higgins under as much pressure, and he'll be buzzing after the win, so I'm not expecting a close semi. Fingers crossed for a Higgins vs Williams final.

[blahblah01]

Really feel for Judd this time in his post match conference. Starting to warm up to him

Similar here: Higgins won, whereas Judd usually cracks when the hammer goes down.....

Selby\White were saying that Higgins looked tired yesterday (before the Evening Session, I think). Given that this contributed to the Selby come back (although no overnight drive to somewhere this year?) I doubt that he will win it.

[Hal]

Any reason why the concluding session of Hawkins - Williams is scheduled to start half hour later than usually at 7 pm? I just checked WS website and it states the start of their last session is at 7:30. Don't remember this in previous editions. Maybe for precautionary reasons if the second semi went full distance? Can't think of anything else.

[Dark]

Higgins won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wilson should be able to push Higgins all the way even if Higgins beats him which makes me question whether Higgins will be able to go the distance in the final after what looks highly likely to be two very tough matches. Higgins will also find it harder to comeback against Wilson than Judd so cannot afford to have any bad patches in the match.

Williams is more experienced, had a better season and his best is better than Hawkins but Hawkins has been playing very well. It could very easily go either way, but when Hawkins has lost at this stage previously it has been by a large margin, 17-8, 17-9 and 17-7. His only win was against Walden, and Walden is not the same quality as his other opponents. Perhaps Hawkins has learnt or improved or something and we will get a close match but maybe Williams will beat him by a margin again.

[Porter]

I agree, I'm really hoping for Kiran to win this! I am a big fan of his. And IMHO he wants it the most and I hope he plays well enough to get it.