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So, the World Championship is almost upon us and the old question has arisen again, so tradition dictates we have one of these threads. :smile: Who do you think will win it?
The qualifiers have thrown up quite a few surprises, with potentially dangerous qualifiers such as Marco Fu, Ryan Day, Yan Bingtao and Jimmy Robertson all losing, while many low-ranked players have come through to make their Crucible debut. I actually think this could be one of the more predictable World Championships in recent memory, because most of the titles this season have been shared among a very select group of players, and it's tough to see anyone from outside of that group seriously challenging them, but of course you can never really be sure in snooker, or sport in general for that matter.
I hope you will forgive me for this post being a little incoherent in places, but parts of it were written before the draw was made or even before the qualifiers were completed, and other parts were written just now. :smile: That said, let's have a look through the players and try to answer the most important question of all... Who is going to win the 2019 World Championship?
As always, let's start at the other end, with a couple of players who have absolutely no chance of winning this title. James Cahill is the player that stands out immediately, the first amateur to ever make it through to the Crucible. Of course he has spent quite a few years as a professional, but in most of that time he was known as the one-hit wonder than once beat Ding on TV, before becoming a two-hit wonder when he added Selby to his list of victims in the UK Championship this season. I will put Michael Georgiou alongside him, because he is the only other player in the draw who has never appeared at the business end of any ranking tournament, minor or major, apart from the one that doesn't deserve to be mentioned here. :wink: Georgiou has barely won a match at a venue all season, so just qualifying for the Crucible is a pleasant surprise from him. Luo Honghao is the youngest player in the draw this year, the only teenager in fact, and I think it may be a little too soon for him to produce any miracles. He did show promise in his run to the QF of the English Open this season though, and drawing an out-of-form player such as Murphy just might give him a chance for a respectable debut.
I think we can safely rule out the two older Chinese players as well. Tian Pengfei has actually made a nice step forward in his career this season, reaching the QF of two minor ranking events, but I don't think he really has the quality to do anything more than that. I wonder what Ryan Day must be thinking though. Nine years ago Tian thrashed him in the final of a minor invitational event in China, and now he did the same to him in the WC qualifiers, even though they are much less evenly-matched on paper than they were back then. I also can't see Li Hang making much progress in the tournament. He actually plays the kind of steady and methodical game that is well suited to the longer matches, so in a way it's a shame for him that there aren't more of them, but ultimately I just think he lacks the firepower to compete with the very best players in the world.
I also don't have much faith in Gary Wilson this year. He is of course a former ranking finalist in the proper format, but this season he just hasn't been much of a factor in the game, apart from getting to the QF of the World Open way back in August. To be fair though, he made a pretty decent effort against O'Sullivan on his Crucible debut two years ago. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh is probably not a great bet either. His win in Watford was impressive, it has to be said, but in proper snooker he is somewhat less successful, only getting to one minor QF all season. He is the kind of player the Crucible audience will just love though.
I think we can also rule out the other two Chinese youngsters. Zhou Yuelong in particular has had quite a disappointing season, after his minor breakthrough the season before. He has only managed a single run to the QF, and even that came in the Gibraltar Open which is arguably the smallest snooker event on the calendar. He didn't really come close to beating Ding on his Crucible debut two years ago, and I would be surprised if he came any closer to beating Allen this year. Zhao Xintong hasn't had much luck with the draw either, but I would give him a slightly better chance of beating Selby in the 1st round, especially as he pushed him very close in the SF of the China Championship this season. That was the first ranking SF of Zhao's career, and he followed it up with a run to the QF of the Welsh Open as well. It has always been intriguing for me to follow the careers of the young Chinese players of that generation and trying to guess who would come out on top, and at one point it was beginning to look like Zhao and Lyu Haotian were falling a little behind the likes of Yan and Zhou, but this season things have turned around. One thing is for sure though, Zhao's shot selection can be a little "optimistic" at times, to put it nicely, so he would do well to develop a better tactical game. He seemed to score quite nicely in the qualifiers though, so I hope he can bring something similar to the Crucible. Speaking of the qualifiers, Scott Donaldson was the last man through last night, in the most dramatic of circumstances. He has had quite a few decent runs this season, but until this month all the best results of his career have been limited to short-format snooker, so it was refreshing to see him playing well in the slightly longer matches in the China Open. Okay, he never faced a top player on his way to the SF there, but he wasn't playing compete outsiders either, beating the likes of Gilbert, Perry and Walden along the way. Judging by what I saw last night, I can't really see him doing anything great at the Crucible, but you never know.
Of the more experienced players, I would also rule out Mark Davis at this point. I've already written the paragraph about John Higgins that we will get to a little later in this post, and at the time I didn't know the draw yet, so I will use this opportunity to express my amusement at Higgins drawing Davis again. He must be sick of him by now, as he seems to lose to him every time they play, including of course the 1st round of the WC six years ago. Well, Davis is coming here on the back of a pretty good season this time, including a run to the final of the English Open, which is the best result of his career to date. He played some cracking snooker that week, most notably against O'Sullivan in the SF, although it was sad to see people trying to discredit his performance by claiming O'Sullivan had lost on purpose. In any case, the fact of the matter is that Davis has never won any tournament of note in his entire career, so it would be quite shocking if he were to win this one. I would have ruled out Graeme Dott earlier, but I've kind of learnt my lesson after everyone was saying he would beat Carter in the 1st round two years ago and I basically dismissed the possibility. We don't see him much on TV anymore, but at times he proves he can still play to a fairly high standard, and he is of course a former winner and twice a runner-up here. I was actually going to include Martin Gould in the following group, but I am just looking at some of his stats now and I can't see anything that would justify that. He has just had the most dreadful of seasons, losing in the qualifiers of most events, and in the early rounds of those he did qualify for. It seems more recent than that, but his one and only major ranking title is over three years old now, so it looks as though the best days of his career are behind him. On top of that, he has only won two matches at the Crucible in his entire career, both against Marco Fu, so it's clearly not a venue he does well at.
Moving on, there are some other players that I think are very unlikely to win this title. Joe Perry has featured at the business of many major events throughout the years, including of course the SF of the WC in 2008, but he has never won any event outside of the PTC series. He just comes up short time and time again, and it was the same in the European Masters this season when he lost to Jimmy Robertson in the final, in what was his best chance to finally win something of note. Perry is a classy player though, make no mistake. He thrashed Selby in the opening round last year, and he can play his part this year as well, not least because he was lucky enough to be drawn against the lowest seed. Ali Carter is another player who will probably be quite pleased with his draw. He was actually the player who beat Perry in 2008, to reach the first of his two World finals. I can't really be sure, but I suspect Carter is probably the qualifier everyone wanted to avoid the most, because he could quite easily be a top16 player himself, and he has had some good results this season, including a run to the final of the World Grand Prix. It wouldn't be a surprise for me at all to see Carter at the business end here, but I don't think he can realistically win it. And the same probably goes for Anthony McGill as well. Of all the players on the main tour, I think McGill is possibly the one that has disappointed the most this season. In the first half of last season he was basically on par with Kyren Wilson, but their results have gone in opposite directions since them. McGill's season has been full of 1st round exits in all kinds of tournaments, without a single highlight to point out. It's a little disappointing to see a player in his 20s decline so badly for no apparent reason, while players much older than him are enjoying their best years. Hopefully he can turn it around again at some point, and it could start here.
That just leaves the seeded players, and I think a few of them are quite unlikely to win the World title as well. David Gilbert has enjoyed the best season of his career so far, getting to the final of two major ranking events and competing very well in both of them. He has been quite unlucky in a way, because there are a lot of titles to be won these days, but he just hasn't found himself in the right place at the right time yet. All three ranking finals he has contested so far saw him come up against top players in good form, so it was always going to be tough for him. I think he is now probably the best player in the world not to have won a ranking title of some description. Could the WC be his first? Well, it happened that way for Murphy and Dott in 2005 and 2006 respectively, but recently there have been fewer surprises at the Crucible. I can definitely see Gilbert playing his part though. He has three runs to the QF of minor events this season on top of his two finals, so the consistency is definitely there. Jack Lisowski has also raised his game to a higher level this season. He started very strongly, getting to the business end in five of the first seven tournaments he played in, then went quiet in the middle part of the season, before finishing strongly again with that run to the final of the China Open. It's encouraging that he is not just playing his part in the minor events, but also the really big ones with the longer matches. He had the misfortune of coming up against an in-form Neil Robertson in both of his finals, as well as in the SF of the International Championship which was also played over two sessions. I don't think he is quite on the level needed to compete against the best players in the world in the longer matches. His game is not really versatile enough, he often makes poor decisions at the wrong time, and he doesn't handle pressure as well as the players who are above him in the rankings. Still, he is moving in the right direction, and he finds himself in a fairly favourable quarter of the draw here, so it wouldn't be a surprise to see him doing well. Finally, I would exclude Stephen Maguire from contention as well. It's good to see him featuring more in the latter stages of events, and he seems to be dealing with setbacks a little better in recent times, compared to what he was like in the past, but the fact of the matter is that he hasn't won a ranking event in more than six years, and he hasn't won one outside of the short format in more than a decade. I just don't think he is used to winning enough for him to be a contender here. That said, he made a pretty good effort against O'Sullivan in the opening round last year, and the year before he played some very good snooker to end his run of 1st round defeats at the Crucible. I think he is still capable of beating anyone in the world in a match of any distance, but stringing five wins together against world-class opposition is a different matter...
That just leaves the 13 players who, in my opinion, have at least an outside chance of winning this title.
Let's start with Shaun Murphy, since he has been absent from the business end of tournaments for virtually the entire season, and I doubt many people have him near the top of their list of favourites this year. Basically, his one and only good result was the run to the final of the Scottish Open in December. All other ranking events this season saw him lose in the early rounds, or not even qualify at all, as was the case in three of the big four events in China. He also lost his opening match in both the UK Championship and the Masters, and he failed to qualify for either of the two big events in March. If he is to salvage anything from this season he really needs a strong run here, but the problem is that he is not really coming here with any momentum, and there won't be any easy matches for him to play himself into the tournament. He is even in danger of dropping out of the top16 by the end of the year, since he is losing big points from his runs to the final of the China and the UK Championship in 2017. So, why am I not ruling him out? Well, his poor results this season are most likely the result of personal problems rather than any decline in his technical ability, so he should still be capable of playing world-class snooker if he can find a bit of form. I think he has always been slightly overrated as a player, in the sense that he hasn't been winning the big events with the kind of frequency his status in the game would demand, but the fact is that he has still managed to win all of the most coveted titles in snooker over the course of his career, and he has played in the World final on three occasions. He doesn't have the kind of game that would consistently see him grind out decent results, but the gap between his average game and his best game is pretty extreme, and there is always the chance he finds the latter and just blows his opponents away. He is impossible to keep away from the table when the long balls start going in, he can score more than adequately on his day, and he has proven himself as someone who can stand up to the pressure on many occasions.
Luca Brecel is a similar case to Lisowski in many ways. He too has a habit of throwing frames and matches away by playing the wrong shot at the wrong time, and he lacks the tactical game to grind out results when his form is not quite there. It's a little frustrating that any breakthrough he makes is immediately followed by a prolonged run of mediocre results... He became the youngest player ever to play at the Crucible in 2012, then followed it up with a run to the QF of the UK Championship later that year, but he struggled for a number of years after that. It took him more than three years to reach his first ranking final, then another year and a half to finally win one, and now another year and a half has passed and he hasn't really been able to push on. In fact, his run to the SF of the China Open this month was his first notable result in any ranking event since he won the 2017 China Championship, which is a worrying sign for a young player such as him, and certainly stands out as a very poor statistic for a seeded player at the Crucible. To continue the comparison with Lisowski, Brecel's season has of course been nowhere near as successful, but the one thing in his favour is that he is a proven winner, having won a major ranking event before. He is also quite a few years younger, in fact, he is about the same age as Selby was when he finally made his big breakthrough in 2007. The 1st round draw hasn't been made yet as I type this, but since there aren't many really nasty qualifiers he could be drawn against this year, I think it's time for Brecel to finally win his first match at the Crucible. I don't think he is likely to go much further than that personally, but I wouldn't rule it out either.
As much as it saddens me, I think Ding Junhui only has an outside chance this year as well. He is at an age where most players enjoy their very best years, but he hasn't actually won any event since September 2017, which is pretty dreadful for a player of his potential. For some reason he is not even playing in many events. He skipped five of the ten ranking events before new year, only playing in the major ones, and he basically played no competitive snooker for two months after the Welsh Open, only coming back for the China Open where he lost in the 1st round proper. That means he missed out on some lucrative events such as the Players Championship and the Tour Championship, and his only notable run in the ranking events all season is the QF in the German Masters. It's just not good enough for someone whose ambition is presumably to win the World title. One thing in his favour is his relatively strong record at the Crucible in recent years. It's a little ironic, because his poor Crucible record used to be an argument against his chances for a long time, but he has now reached the business end of the WC for four years in a row, and in two of those he was arguably the second best player in the tournament behind Selby. Last year he started with two strong wins and looked like he was somewhere close to his best, but then ran into an inspired Hawkins in the QF and couldn't match his level at all. Things could be even tougher for him this year, because he would most likely need to beat two of the three best players of the season just to get to the SF. I think the longer matches definitely help players like Ding who are slow starters, but the kind of quarter he has landed in here is just so unforgiving, and there won't be any time at all for him to play himself into the tournament. I don't know... On one hand Ding is almost the perfect player, as he is a strong scorer, tactically sound, with a great record in deciders and in major finals, so he can clearly handle the pressure, but on the other hand he doesn't seem to play with any heart most of the time, and you just can't win this title unless you real want it. I just hope we see the real Ding in this event...
John Higgins is a player you can never really rule out. I think most people would agree that he is no longer the player he was when he last won this title eight years ago, but even in his 40s he came pretty damn close in the last two years. In 2017 he even had a big lead in the final before he ran out of steam, and he might still have made it if his opponent was anyone other than Selby. Last year was the opposite, he played crap for almost three sessions, then played some cracking snooker towards the end and almost turned it around. This year is different though, because it's the first time since 2014 that he comes to the Crucible not having won any titles during the season, and there is not much consistency in his results either. He took a slightly longer break than most players at the start of the season and skipped the summer events, then looked like he would go back to being his usual self when he came within a frame of winning the first event he played in, but unfortunately the rest of his season hasn't had many highlights. And it's not just the case of him running into other top players in good form, he's also had a number of early exits against players you would normally expect him to beat. He doesn't really look like a man who is confident and happy with his game at the moment. I'm not really sure whether the longer matches are in his favour or not. He certainly has a big advantage in experience against most of his opposition, but on the other hand he often finds it hard to keep up his concentration for extended periods, and he clearly isn't in great shape physically either. As I said, you can never really rule Higgins out, but I would be surprised if he were to reach the final again this year.
I kind of feel the same about Mark Williams if I am perfectly honest... I've been doing this same type of previews for a decade now, with the little colour scheme to group players together, but I don't think I've ever had the defending champion in anything other than the last or the penultimate group. Well, this year will be an exception, because I simply don't believe that Williams is coming to the Crucible with anything like the kind of motivation he had a year ago. He has actually been fairly honest about not taking things too seriously this season, so it's not surprising that we've seen very little of the kind of form that saw him win three ranking events the season before. It's not been a complete disaster for him though, he has still managed to win one major ranking event, which is not an insignificant achievement when you consider that 8 of the 16 seeds here have not won anything at all. Perhaps his biggest advantage this year is that he is under no pressure whatsoever, having already exceeded his own expectations by winning it last year. He also has quite a reasonable draw here, avoiding all of his most dangerous rivals until at least the QF. The main thing that worries me though, for all the talk of his ability to grind out results regardless of the style of snooker being played, I think he mostly lacks the patience to play anything other than an all-out attacking game these days, and that can be his undoing when the difficult pots are not going in. When I imagine how his game would have looked a year ago if his long-potting was slightly off, I just don't think he would have had any chance of doing what he did. His win in the German Masters was perhaps an even greater display of ridiculous potting, and I just don't think he is likely to repeat that, judging by the form he's shown for most of this season. Could he have another surprise in store for us?
Barry Hawkins has been the most consistent player at the Crucible for the past six years, getting to the business end of the tournament each time, including a run to the final and four further runs to the SF. To put this in perspective, only Ding has reached the QF five times in this period, while every other player in the world has done it four times at most. It may be the venue itself, or it may be the fact that matches are played over multiple sessions at various times of the day, but there is just something about the Crucible that always seems to bring out the best in Hawkins in recent times. He has beaten several players that enjoy a more prominent status in the game than he does, and he has beaten them with some of his all-time best performances, such as his dramatic wins over Robertson and O'Sullivan in 2015 and 2016 respectively, or his demolition of Ding last year. His game doesn't really have an obvious weakness when he is on form, but he does have the tendency to make matches unnecessarily close by wobbling a little when he gets in front. I've talked about the likes of Ding, Higgins and Murphy not winning anything in some time, so it's only fair that I mention Hawkins hasn't actually won any events himself for more than two years. Somehow there just isn't the same level of expectation with him though, even though he has spent a number of years in the top8 of the rankings now, or at least somewhere close to it. It's worth noting that, since his breakthrough in the 2012 Australian Open, Hawkins has only been able to add a couple of best-of-7 titles to his legacy, so he has never really been a prolific winner. I therefore can't consider him as one of the big favourites here, but another strong run from him wouldn't surprise me in the least.
Moving on to the players who have a more realistic chance of winning this title...
I think Stuart Bingham has to be considered very seriously this year. He won the English and the Gibraltar Open in the short format this season, which makes him one of only five players to have won multiple titles this season. He just narrowly lost the final of the Welsh Open as well, and he came within a frame of getting to the UK final, and within a ball of getting to the SF of the China Open this month, where he would have been a strong favourite to prevail. He has basically played in everything, and his consistency in the second part of the season has been admirable, so he is coming here on the back of some decent form, in contrast to many of his rivals. He is in his 40s now, which seems to be the perfect age for players to win big titles in snooker these days, and of course he has the advantage of having won the World title before, so he is not really under any pressure to repeat that feat. I think most people would agree that his performance here in 2015 was superb and completely on par with other recent winners such as Selby and Williams, so Bingham would have every chance if he could raise his game to that level again. Personally, I don't think he is too far off. He is one of the best scorers in the game, he plays a very sensible, attacking game, where he goes for his shots but rarely does anything too ambitious or downright stupid, and perhaps most importantly, he seems to enjoy every minute of it and knows how to take the pressure off himself. He comes here as the 12th seed, but we have to remember that he sat out a number of big tournaments during his brief suspension last season, so his current ranking most likely doesn't accurately represent his actual ability. It's also the reason why he is set to meet one of the big favourites as early as the 2nd round here, so he definitely won't have it easy.
I've just noticed that Kyren Wilson has also won more than one title this season, so there are in fact six players who share that statistic. One of his wins came in the Paul Hunter Classic, one of the smallest tournaments on the calendar, and he never faced anyone close to being a top player along the way, but his other win was in the German Masters, a tournament that most players love and want to do really well in. He also came very close to winning the Champion of Champions this season, but he had some tremendous misfortune at the business end of the match. He broke down when he only needed a couple more balls to win 10-8, then saw O'Sullivan play an absolutely horrible shot, fluke a snooker and win the frame from it, and in the decider Wilson was first in again, but saw a red go in the middle pocket when he split the pack. It must have been a tough defeat to take, so it was good to see him finally winning another major title later in the season. He is one of those players who don't seem to mind where they play, with good results coming in the UK, continental Europe and Asia alike. The Crucible is of course no exception. He is looking more dangerous with every year, with two QFs and a SF in his last three appearances. Ever since he won his first tournament, there have been a lot of comparisons between Selby and him, and it's quite obvious why. Both players are great battlers who never give up, they play a versatile kind of game that is well suited to the longer matches, and they tend to play their best snooker with their back against the wall. Wilson has been around for a while now, but he is still the second youngest seeded player here, so I could definitely see him emulating some of Selby's achievements in the coming years, especially when you consider that Selby was already 30 when he won the first of his three World titles. Well, whatever happens in the future, I think Wilson is already a strong contender in the present, and he is definitely my pick to make the SF in the top quarter of the draw.
Good time to move onto Mark Selby perhaps... I don't think many people would include him among their big favourites this year, but at the same time I'm sure no one is crazy enough to rule him out either. He comes here as the 3rd seed on this occasion, which is lower than he has been for ages. In fact, if the old system of only updating the rankings at the end of the season was still in place, Selby would have been the uninterrupted world number 1 for seven years in a row, equalling Steve Davis and only just missing out on Stephen Hendry's record. Selby has not really separated himself from his rivals to the same extent as Davis and Hendry did in their prime, so I find his grip on the top spot of the rankings even more remarkable. In any case, he is set to lose it now, whatever happens in this Championship. I think it's fair to say this season hasn't been a successful one for Selby. He did win the China Championship in September, but he hasn't really come close to winning any other titles since. His results in the second part of the season have actually been quite dreadful by his standards, culminating in his early exit from the China Open this month, a tournament he has excelled in in recent years. He's also had some bad luck along the way, such as Robertson playing out of his skin to knock him out of the International Championship, or O'Sullivan beating him thanks to a fluke in the SF of the Northern Ireland Open, but of course the fact that players are raising their game against him is not solely down to luck. He just doesn't scare his opponents in the same way as he did a year or two ago, so it makes sense that fewer players wobble at the prospect of beating him. Another worrying thing is that his last three major titles have all come in China, whereas his results in tournaments back home have been mediocre at best. Now let's look at some positives... For a start, Selby has won three of the last five World Championships, so he has definitely been the king of the Crucible in recent years. He is second to none when it comes to playing snooker over multiple sessions, as shown by his incredible record in major finals over the last five years or so, and he has proved to be impossible to stop at the WC in recent years once he reaches the business end of the tournament. He has got seemingly endless reserves of patience and concentration, he is one of the best tactical and pressure players in the world, and he scores as well as anyone on his day. He is also the king of late-night snooker, which is quite handy in an event such as this one. I don't know... the signs aren't great for him this year, but they weren't great in 2016 either and he still managed to win. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what he can do on this occasion.
A few months ago I expected to have Mark Allen in my final group of contenders here, but he has been a little quiet recently, so I can't quite put him on par with the big three. Earlier I said that Ding is at an age where he should basically be in his prime... Well, Allen is only a year older, and this past year and a half has been the most successful period of his career so far. Just before new year he was the reigning Masters, International and Scottish champion, and he got to the UK final as well. He was one of the very best players in the world at that point in time, and it's only been four months since then, so things can't have changed too dramatically. Allen actually hasn't played as much snooker as some of his rivals recently, deciding to skip most of the minor events since new year, as well as two of the four biggest ranking events since the Masters. I am not sure what the reason for that is, but I can't help thinking it may not have been such a great idea. He is not really coming here with any momentum now, and his record at the Crucible in recent years has not been the best. In fact, last year was the first time in seven years that he even reached the QF, although to be fair to him, some players really did play tremendously well against him in previous years. I do hope we see the kind of form he showed in the first half of the season, because the stuff he played to win the International Championship was some of the best snooker anyone has played all season. His scoring around the black and pink spot area has been just tremendous recently, and he has always had the fighting spirit to compete in these long matches, regardless of the result. And now he also has the belief he can win these big titles, having won two of the biggest titles snooker has to offer in the recent past. Another thing I like about Allen is that he also enjoys playing mind games with his opponents at times, and he is very good at pushing on once he gets an advantage and also at limiting his losses when he goes behind, which is a great attribute to have when it comes to playing matches over multiple sessions. Looking at the draw here, I definitely think Allen should make at least the QF, and I'm sure no one would particularly want to play him in the latter stages this year.
That just leaves the three players I consider to be the big favourites for this year's World title.
Let's start with Neil Robertson. A year and a half ago he reached one of the lowest points of his career by dropping out of the top16 and missing out on a place in the Masters, and at that point I honestly didn't think he would ever quite get back to being the kind of force in the game that he was previously. Well, here we are now, and Robertson has not only got himself back into the top4 of the rankings, but has also enjoyed one of the most successful seasons of his entire career so far, getting to six finals and winning three of them. Of course seasons are difficult to compare, mainly because there are a lot more tournaments to be won these days than there were when Robertson first rose to the top of the game, but winning three titles is always impressive. The China Open is the one that stands out the most, being second only to the WC in terms of prize money on offer. It was a weird tournament in way, with most of the top players playing really poorly in it, so in the end Robertson won it quite easily without ever coming across anyone remotely in his league. It was kind of similar to the underwhelming opposition O'Sullivan beat to win the UK title this season, so I guess it's fair to say that two of the biggest ranking events this season were a little bit disappointing on the whole. But I digress... Robertson also had the misfortune of coming up against the likes of O'Sullivan and Allen in inspired form on several occasions this season, which probably stopped him winning even more titles. Recently he said in an interview that he would be disappointed to only win one World title over the course of his career, so I guess the motivation is still there for him in a big way. He actually has something to prove at the Crucible, having lost in the early rounds for three years in a row now. It's been known to happen for players to run out of steam at the Crucible after really good seasons, but somehow it's difficult to imagine it could happen to Robertson here. He just about has the easiest draw he could have possibly wished for, facing one of the big outsiders in his opening match (yeah, I wanted to finish this before the draw was made, but I missed it by a mile :smile
, probably followed by an out-of-sorts Murphy, so he really should make the QF before he has to play someone in good form. I don't think many players can match Robertson's scoring this season, which has probably been his greatest strength, and he seems to have regained the kind of mental toughness that was so typical for him when he first started winning titles 13 years ago. There could be a danger that Robertson puts too much pressure on himself to succeed here, but if he can play anything like the snooker he has played throughout the season, there are not many players who can match him over three or four sessions.
Judd Trump is one of the few that could, but of course they are in opposite halves here, so they can't meet before the final. I am not quite sure how Trump is only the 7th seed here, but I guess mediocre results in the WC, the UK and the China Open in the last two seasons have cost him too many points for him to be any higher. This season has probably been the most consistent of Trump's career so far, he looked like a title contender in the vast majority of events he's played in, and he never really had any major setbacks. The only criticism is that he is still not winning big titles with the kind of frequency we've seen from the likes of O'Sullivan and Selby in recent years, but he is definitely on the right track if he continues to put the work in, like he has been doing this season. Obviously his highlight of the season has been winning the Masters, where he actually beat just about as tough a field as one can possibly expect to face, and his demolition of O'Sullivan in the final was most encouraging, especially since he had already beaten O'Sullivan in another final earlier in the season. I think he has matured as a player this season, certainly in regards to his tactical game and decision-making, which is something that hindered him a lot in the past. He's had a couple of really good chances to win the WC already, but there was always just something lacking in his game or in his mental preparation. To be honest, he probably should have beaten Higgins last year, but you could see he didn't really have the confidence when facing a player who had beaten him so many times before on the big stage. Well, Higgins is far away in the draw this time, but unfortunately Trump has landed in arguably the toughest quarter here, potentially having to face the likes of Ding as early as the 2nd round, and O'Sullivan in the QF. Trump is almost 30 now, which used to be the point where players started panicking if they had not won the WC yet, but times are changing now, and there actually hasn't been a champion in their 20s since Robertson in 2010. Trump still has plenty of time to win it, in fact, he could find himself as one of the tournament favourites every year for the next decade. Will this be his year?
And let's conclude with Ronnie O'Sullivan on this occasion. In the last two seasons O'Sullivan has somehow found a way to do something he had been struggling with for most of his career - to convert his ability into titles with great frequency. Okay, there are a lot more titles on offer these days, but it's not as if O'Sullivan is playing in everything. He has actually skipped the vast majority of the minor ranking events, particularly those played outside of the UK, and quite a few of the major ones as well. He has won three ranking and two invitational events this season, lost in the final of another couple of events, and he only played in three other events where he failed to reach the final. He clearly enjoys the events where fewer players are involved and fewer tables are used, so it looks like he's made the decision to target those before any others, a decision that has proved to be a very good one for him. His "style of winning" has actually reminded me a lot of Higgins from a few years ago, in the sense that it's not always the usual story of blowing his opponents away with one-visit snooker, but also a lot of hard-fought matches where he's had to come from behind and use all of his experience over multiple sessions to prevail in the end. It's been said many times before but I think it's worth repeating, what a shame that O'Sullivan was not able to find this kind of mental toughness earlier in his career, who knows how much more he could have won... He has always had a great record in finals, and the last few years have been no exception, with 11 titles out of 15 attempts since 2017. If we get to the business end and O'Sullivan is still in the tournament, I don't think I would back anyone to beat him, with the exception of Selby perhaps. The problem is though, in the last few years O'Sullivan hasn't really brought his best snooker to the Crucible. In fact, in the last four years he lost to players he has a very strong record against, over three sessions, and he looked to be under pressure right from the start without any apparent reason. Perhaps the prospect of chasing records at the Crucible is a bigger burden for him than we are led to believe, or perhaps the prospect of battling it out for 17 days is something that demotivates him, knowing how tough he finds it to stay at venues for extended periods. Well, whatever arguments against his chances one can think of, there is still no doubt he will start this Championship as the favourite, and rightfully so. Even in his 40s his scoring is still second to none, his long-potting is probably better than at any other point in the last decade, and he has all the experience in the world. He also has the luxury of some players doubting whether they can even beat him on the big stage, and that luxury is the result of all the thrashings he has administered over the years. I'm sure he is not finished yet, not by a long shot.
There we are then, that's just about all I have to say before the tournament starts. :smile: For the record, I will be voting for Trump, but it's a very difficult call to make. I will leave the poll open until next weekend, so the results may be a little distorted if people vote after some players have already gone out, but I think two days is not enough time for everyone to get their vote in otherwise.
Looking forward to your opinions. Who do you think is going to win the 2019 World Championship? :smile:
The qualifiers have thrown up quite a few surprises, with potentially dangerous qualifiers such as Marco Fu, Ryan Day, Yan Bingtao and Jimmy Robertson all losing, while many low-ranked players have come through to make their Crucible debut. I actually think this could be one of the more predictable World Championships in recent memory, because most of the titles this season have been shared among a very select group of players, and it's tough to see anyone from outside of that group seriously challenging them, but of course you can never really be sure in snooker, or sport in general for that matter.
I hope you will forgive me for this post being a little incoherent in places, but parts of it were written before the draw was made or even before the qualifiers were completed, and other parts were written just now. :smile: That said, let's have a look through the players and try to answer the most important question of all... Who is going to win the 2019 World Championship?
As always, let's start at the other end, with a couple of players who have absolutely no chance of winning this title. James Cahill is the player that stands out immediately, the first amateur to ever make it through to the Crucible. Of course he has spent quite a few years as a professional, but in most of that time he was known as the one-hit wonder than once beat Ding on TV, before becoming a two-hit wonder when he added Selby to his list of victims in the UK Championship this season. I will put Michael Georgiou alongside him, because he is the only other player in the draw who has never appeared at the business end of any ranking tournament, minor or major, apart from the one that doesn't deserve to be mentioned here. :wink: Georgiou has barely won a match at a venue all season, so just qualifying for the Crucible is a pleasant surprise from him. Luo Honghao is the youngest player in the draw this year, the only teenager in fact, and I think it may be a little too soon for him to produce any miracles. He did show promise in his run to the QF of the English Open this season though, and drawing an out-of-form player such as Murphy just might give him a chance for a respectable debut.
I think we can safely rule out the two older Chinese players as well. Tian Pengfei has actually made a nice step forward in his career this season, reaching the QF of two minor ranking events, but I don't think he really has the quality to do anything more than that. I wonder what Ryan Day must be thinking though. Nine years ago Tian thrashed him in the final of a minor invitational event in China, and now he did the same to him in the WC qualifiers, even though they are much less evenly-matched on paper than they were back then. I also can't see Li Hang making much progress in the tournament. He actually plays the kind of steady and methodical game that is well suited to the longer matches, so in a way it's a shame for him that there aren't more of them, but ultimately I just think he lacks the firepower to compete with the very best players in the world.
I also don't have much faith in Gary Wilson this year. He is of course a former ranking finalist in the proper format, but this season he just hasn't been much of a factor in the game, apart from getting to the QF of the World Open way back in August. To be fair though, he made a pretty decent effort against O'Sullivan on his Crucible debut two years ago. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh is probably not a great bet either. His win in Watford was impressive, it has to be said, but in proper snooker he is somewhat less successful, only getting to one minor QF all season. He is the kind of player the Crucible audience will just love though.
I think we can also rule out the other two Chinese youngsters. Zhou Yuelong in particular has had quite a disappointing season, after his minor breakthrough the season before. He has only managed a single run to the QF, and even that came in the Gibraltar Open which is arguably the smallest snooker event on the calendar. He didn't really come close to beating Ding on his Crucible debut two years ago, and I would be surprised if he came any closer to beating Allen this year. Zhao Xintong hasn't had much luck with the draw either, but I would give him a slightly better chance of beating Selby in the 1st round, especially as he pushed him very close in the SF of the China Championship this season. That was the first ranking SF of Zhao's career, and he followed it up with a run to the QF of the Welsh Open as well. It has always been intriguing for me to follow the careers of the young Chinese players of that generation and trying to guess who would come out on top, and at one point it was beginning to look like Zhao and Lyu Haotian were falling a little behind the likes of Yan and Zhou, but this season things have turned around. One thing is for sure though, Zhao's shot selection can be a little "optimistic" at times, to put it nicely, so he would do well to develop a better tactical game. He seemed to score quite nicely in the qualifiers though, so I hope he can bring something similar to the Crucible. Speaking of the qualifiers, Scott Donaldson was the last man through last night, in the most dramatic of circumstances. He has had quite a few decent runs this season, but until this month all the best results of his career have been limited to short-format snooker, so it was refreshing to see him playing well in the slightly longer matches in the China Open. Okay, he never faced a top player on his way to the SF there, but he wasn't playing compete outsiders either, beating the likes of Gilbert, Perry and Walden along the way. Judging by what I saw last night, I can't really see him doing anything great at the Crucible, but you never know.
Of the more experienced players, I would also rule out Mark Davis at this point. I've already written the paragraph about John Higgins that we will get to a little later in this post, and at the time I didn't know the draw yet, so I will use this opportunity to express my amusement at Higgins drawing Davis again. He must be sick of him by now, as he seems to lose to him every time they play, including of course the 1st round of the WC six years ago. Well, Davis is coming here on the back of a pretty good season this time, including a run to the final of the English Open, which is the best result of his career to date. He played some cracking snooker that week, most notably against O'Sullivan in the SF, although it was sad to see people trying to discredit his performance by claiming O'Sullivan had lost on purpose. In any case, the fact of the matter is that Davis has never won any tournament of note in his entire career, so it would be quite shocking if he were to win this one. I would have ruled out Graeme Dott earlier, but I've kind of learnt my lesson after everyone was saying he would beat Carter in the 1st round two years ago and I basically dismissed the possibility. We don't see him much on TV anymore, but at times he proves he can still play to a fairly high standard, and he is of course a former winner and twice a runner-up here. I was actually going to include Martin Gould in the following group, but I am just looking at some of his stats now and I can't see anything that would justify that. He has just had the most dreadful of seasons, losing in the qualifiers of most events, and in the early rounds of those he did qualify for. It seems more recent than that, but his one and only major ranking title is over three years old now, so it looks as though the best days of his career are behind him. On top of that, he has only won two matches at the Crucible in his entire career, both against Marco Fu, so it's clearly not a venue he does well at.
Moving on, there are some other players that I think are very unlikely to win this title. Joe Perry has featured at the business of many major events throughout the years, including of course the SF of the WC in 2008, but he has never won any event outside of the PTC series. He just comes up short time and time again, and it was the same in the European Masters this season when he lost to Jimmy Robertson in the final, in what was his best chance to finally win something of note. Perry is a classy player though, make no mistake. He thrashed Selby in the opening round last year, and he can play his part this year as well, not least because he was lucky enough to be drawn against the lowest seed. Ali Carter is another player who will probably be quite pleased with his draw. He was actually the player who beat Perry in 2008, to reach the first of his two World finals. I can't really be sure, but I suspect Carter is probably the qualifier everyone wanted to avoid the most, because he could quite easily be a top16 player himself, and he has had some good results this season, including a run to the final of the World Grand Prix. It wouldn't be a surprise for me at all to see Carter at the business end here, but I don't think he can realistically win it. And the same probably goes for Anthony McGill as well. Of all the players on the main tour, I think McGill is possibly the one that has disappointed the most this season. In the first half of last season he was basically on par with Kyren Wilson, but their results have gone in opposite directions since them. McGill's season has been full of 1st round exits in all kinds of tournaments, without a single highlight to point out. It's a little disappointing to see a player in his 20s decline so badly for no apparent reason, while players much older than him are enjoying their best years. Hopefully he can turn it around again at some point, and it could start here.
That just leaves the seeded players, and I think a few of them are quite unlikely to win the World title as well. David Gilbert has enjoyed the best season of his career so far, getting to the final of two major ranking events and competing very well in both of them. He has been quite unlucky in a way, because there are a lot of titles to be won these days, but he just hasn't found himself in the right place at the right time yet. All three ranking finals he has contested so far saw him come up against top players in good form, so it was always going to be tough for him. I think he is now probably the best player in the world not to have won a ranking title of some description. Could the WC be his first? Well, it happened that way for Murphy and Dott in 2005 and 2006 respectively, but recently there have been fewer surprises at the Crucible. I can definitely see Gilbert playing his part though. He has three runs to the QF of minor events this season on top of his two finals, so the consistency is definitely there. Jack Lisowski has also raised his game to a higher level this season. He started very strongly, getting to the business end in five of the first seven tournaments he played in, then went quiet in the middle part of the season, before finishing strongly again with that run to the final of the China Open. It's encouraging that he is not just playing his part in the minor events, but also the really big ones with the longer matches. He had the misfortune of coming up against an in-form Neil Robertson in both of his finals, as well as in the SF of the International Championship which was also played over two sessions. I don't think he is quite on the level needed to compete against the best players in the world in the longer matches. His game is not really versatile enough, he often makes poor decisions at the wrong time, and he doesn't handle pressure as well as the players who are above him in the rankings. Still, he is moving in the right direction, and he finds himself in a fairly favourable quarter of the draw here, so it wouldn't be a surprise to see him doing well. Finally, I would exclude Stephen Maguire from contention as well. It's good to see him featuring more in the latter stages of events, and he seems to be dealing with setbacks a little better in recent times, compared to what he was like in the past, but the fact of the matter is that he hasn't won a ranking event in more than six years, and he hasn't won one outside of the short format in more than a decade. I just don't think he is used to winning enough for him to be a contender here. That said, he made a pretty good effort against O'Sullivan in the opening round last year, and the year before he played some very good snooker to end his run of 1st round defeats at the Crucible. I think he is still capable of beating anyone in the world in a match of any distance, but stringing five wins together against world-class opposition is a different matter...
That just leaves the 13 players who, in my opinion, have at least an outside chance of winning this title.
Let's start with Shaun Murphy, since he has been absent from the business end of tournaments for virtually the entire season, and I doubt many people have him near the top of their list of favourites this year. Basically, his one and only good result was the run to the final of the Scottish Open in December. All other ranking events this season saw him lose in the early rounds, or not even qualify at all, as was the case in three of the big four events in China. He also lost his opening match in both the UK Championship and the Masters, and he failed to qualify for either of the two big events in March. If he is to salvage anything from this season he really needs a strong run here, but the problem is that he is not really coming here with any momentum, and there won't be any easy matches for him to play himself into the tournament. He is even in danger of dropping out of the top16 by the end of the year, since he is losing big points from his runs to the final of the China and the UK Championship in 2017. So, why am I not ruling him out? Well, his poor results this season are most likely the result of personal problems rather than any decline in his technical ability, so he should still be capable of playing world-class snooker if he can find a bit of form. I think he has always been slightly overrated as a player, in the sense that he hasn't been winning the big events with the kind of frequency his status in the game would demand, but the fact is that he has still managed to win all of the most coveted titles in snooker over the course of his career, and he has played in the World final on three occasions. He doesn't have the kind of game that would consistently see him grind out decent results, but the gap between his average game and his best game is pretty extreme, and there is always the chance he finds the latter and just blows his opponents away. He is impossible to keep away from the table when the long balls start going in, he can score more than adequately on his day, and he has proven himself as someone who can stand up to the pressure on many occasions.
Luca Brecel is a similar case to Lisowski in many ways. He too has a habit of throwing frames and matches away by playing the wrong shot at the wrong time, and he lacks the tactical game to grind out results when his form is not quite there. It's a little frustrating that any breakthrough he makes is immediately followed by a prolonged run of mediocre results... He became the youngest player ever to play at the Crucible in 2012, then followed it up with a run to the QF of the UK Championship later that year, but he struggled for a number of years after that. It took him more than three years to reach his first ranking final, then another year and a half to finally win one, and now another year and a half has passed and he hasn't really been able to push on. In fact, his run to the SF of the China Open this month was his first notable result in any ranking event since he won the 2017 China Championship, which is a worrying sign for a young player such as him, and certainly stands out as a very poor statistic for a seeded player at the Crucible. To continue the comparison with Lisowski, Brecel's season has of course been nowhere near as successful, but the one thing in his favour is that he is a proven winner, having won a major ranking event before. He is also quite a few years younger, in fact, he is about the same age as Selby was when he finally made his big breakthrough in 2007. The 1st round draw hasn't been made yet as I type this, but since there aren't many really nasty qualifiers he could be drawn against this year, I think it's time for Brecel to finally win his first match at the Crucible. I don't think he is likely to go much further than that personally, but I wouldn't rule it out either.
As much as it saddens me, I think Ding Junhui only has an outside chance this year as well. He is at an age where most players enjoy their very best years, but he hasn't actually won any event since September 2017, which is pretty dreadful for a player of his potential. For some reason he is not even playing in many events. He skipped five of the ten ranking events before new year, only playing in the major ones, and he basically played no competitive snooker for two months after the Welsh Open, only coming back for the China Open where he lost in the 1st round proper. That means he missed out on some lucrative events such as the Players Championship and the Tour Championship, and his only notable run in the ranking events all season is the QF in the German Masters. It's just not good enough for someone whose ambition is presumably to win the World title. One thing in his favour is his relatively strong record at the Crucible in recent years. It's a little ironic, because his poor Crucible record used to be an argument against his chances for a long time, but he has now reached the business end of the WC for four years in a row, and in two of those he was arguably the second best player in the tournament behind Selby. Last year he started with two strong wins and looked like he was somewhere close to his best, but then ran into an inspired Hawkins in the QF and couldn't match his level at all. Things could be even tougher for him this year, because he would most likely need to beat two of the three best players of the season just to get to the SF. I think the longer matches definitely help players like Ding who are slow starters, but the kind of quarter he has landed in here is just so unforgiving, and there won't be any time at all for him to play himself into the tournament. I don't know... On one hand Ding is almost the perfect player, as he is a strong scorer, tactically sound, with a great record in deciders and in major finals, so he can clearly handle the pressure, but on the other hand he doesn't seem to play with any heart most of the time, and you just can't win this title unless you real want it. I just hope we see the real Ding in this event...
John Higgins is a player you can never really rule out. I think most people would agree that he is no longer the player he was when he last won this title eight years ago, but even in his 40s he came pretty damn close in the last two years. In 2017 he even had a big lead in the final before he ran out of steam, and he might still have made it if his opponent was anyone other than Selby. Last year was the opposite, he played crap for almost three sessions, then played some cracking snooker towards the end and almost turned it around. This year is different though, because it's the first time since 2014 that he comes to the Crucible not having won any titles during the season, and there is not much consistency in his results either. He took a slightly longer break than most players at the start of the season and skipped the summer events, then looked like he would go back to being his usual self when he came within a frame of winning the first event he played in, but unfortunately the rest of his season hasn't had many highlights. And it's not just the case of him running into other top players in good form, he's also had a number of early exits against players you would normally expect him to beat. He doesn't really look like a man who is confident and happy with his game at the moment. I'm not really sure whether the longer matches are in his favour or not. He certainly has a big advantage in experience against most of his opposition, but on the other hand he often finds it hard to keep up his concentration for extended periods, and he clearly isn't in great shape physically either. As I said, you can never really rule Higgins out, but I would be surprised if he were to reach the final again this year.
I kind of feel the same about Mark Williams if I am perfectly honest... I've been doing this same type of previews for a decade now, with the little colour scheme to group players together, but I don't think I've ever had the defending champion in anything other than the last or the penultimate group. Well, this year will be an exception, because I simply don't believe that Williams is coming to the Crucible with anything like the kind of motivation he had a year ago. He has actually been fairly honest about not taking things too seriously this season, so it's not surprising that we've seen very little of the kind of form that saw him win three ranking events the season before. It's not been a complete disaster for him though, he has still managed to win one major ranking event, which is not an insignificant achievement when you consider that 8 of the 16 seeds here have not won anything at all. Perhaps his biggest advantage this year is that he is under no pressure whatsoever, having already exceeded his own expectations by winning it last year. He also has quite a reasonable draw here, avoiding all of his most dangerous rivals until at least the QF. The main thing that worries me though, for all the talk of his ability to grind out results regardless of the style of snooker being played, I think he mostly lacks the patience to play anything other than an all-out attacking game these days, and that can be his undoing when the difficult pots are not going in. When I imagine how his game would have looked a year ago if his long-potting was slightly off, I just don't think he would have had any chance of doing what he did. His win in the German Masters was perhaps an even greater display of ridiculous potting, and I just don't think he is likely to repeat that, judging by the form he's shown for most of this season. Could he have another surprise in store for us?
Barry Hawkins has been the most consistent player at the Crucible for the past six years, getting to the business end of the tournament each time, including a run to the final and four further runs to the SF. To put this in perspective, only Ding has reached the QF five times in this period, while every other player in the world has done it four times at most. It may be the venue itself, or it may be the fact that matches are played over multiple sessions at various times of the day, but there is just something about the Crucible that always seems to bring out the best in Hawkins in recent times. He has beaten several players that enjoy a more prominent status in the game than he does, and he has beaten them with some of his all-time best performances, such as his dramatic wins over Robertson and O'Sullivan in 2015 and 2016 respectively, or his demolition of Ding last year. His game doesn't really have an obvious weakness when he is on form, but he does have the tendency to make matches unnecessarily close by wobbling a little when he gets in front. I've talked about the likes of Ding, Higgins and Murphy not winning anything in some time, so it's only fair that I mention Hawkins hasn't actually won any events himself for more than two years. Somehow there just isn't the same level of expectation with him though, even though he has spent a number of years in the top8 of the rankings now, or at least somewhere close to it. It's worth noting that, since his breakthrough in the 2012 Australian Open, Hawkins has only been able to add a couple of best-of-7 titles to his legacy, so he has never really been a prolific winner. I therefore can't consider him as one of the big favourites here, but another strong run from him wouldn't surprise me in the least.
Moving on to the players who have a more realistic chance of winning this title...
I think Stuart Bingham has to be considered very seriously this year. He won the English and the Gibraltar Open in the short format this season, which makes him one of only five players to have won multiple titles this season. He just narrowly lost the final of the Welsh Open as well, and he came within a frame of getting to the UK final, and within a ball of getting to the SF of the China Open this month, where he would have been a strong favourite to prevail. He has basically played in everything, and his consistency in the second part of the season has been admirable, so he is coming here on the back of some decent form, in contrast to many of his rivals. He is in his 40s now, which seems to be the perfect age for players to win big titles in snooker these days, and of course he has the advantage of having won the World title before, so he is not really under any pressure to repeat that feat. I think most people would agree that his performance here in 2015 was superb and completely on par with other recent winners such as Selby and Williams, so Bingham would have every chance if he could raise his game to that level again. Personally, I don't think he is too far off. He is one of the best scorers in the game, he plays a very sensible, attacking game, where he goes for his shots but rarely does anything too ambitious or downright stupid, and perhaps most importantly, he seems to enjoy every minute of it and knows how to take the pressure off himself. He comes here as the 12th seed, but we have to remember that he sat out a number of big tournaments during his brief suspension last season, so his current ranking most likely doesn't accurately represent his actual ability. It's also the reason why he is set to meet one of the big favourites as early as the 2nd round here, so he definitely won't have it easy.
I've just noticed that Kyren Wilson has also won more than one title this season, so there are in fact six players who share that statistic. One of his wins came in the Paul Hunter Classic, one of the smallest tournaments on the calendar, and he never faced anyone close to being a top player along the way, but his other win was in the German Masters, a tournament that most players love and want to do really well in. He also came very close to winning the Champion of Champions this season, but he had some tremendous misfortune at the business end of the match. He broke down when he only needed a couple more balls to win 10-8, then saw O'Sullivan play an absolutely horrible shot, fluke a snooker and win the frame from it, and in the decider Wilson was first in again, but saw a red go in the middle pocket when he split the pack. It must have been a tough defeat to take, so it was good to see him finally winning another major title later in the season. He is one of those players who don't seem to mind where they play, with good results coming in the UK, continental Europe and Asia alike. The Crucible is of course no exception. He is looking more dangerous with every year, with two QFs and a SF in his last three appearances. Ever since he won his first tournament, there have been a lot of comparisons between Selby and him, and it's quite obvious why. Both players are great battlers who never give up, they play a versatile kind of game that is well suited to the longer matches, and they tend to play their best snooker with their back against the wall. Wilson has been around for a while now, but he is still the second youngest seeded player here, so I could definitely see him emulating some of Selby's achievements in the coming years, especially when you consider that Selby was already 30 when he won the first of his three World titles. Well, whatever happens in the future, I think Wilson is already a strong contender in the present, and he is definitely my pick to make the SF in the top quarter of the draw.
Good time to move onto Mark Selby perhaps... I don't think many people would include him among their big favourites this year, but at the same time I'm sure no one is crazy enough to rule him out either. He comes here as the 3rd seed on this occasion, which is lower than he has been for ages. In fact, if the old system of only updating the rankings at the end of the season was still in place, Selby would have been the uninterrupted world number 1 for seven years in a row, equalling Steve Davis and only just missing out on Stephen Hendry's record. Selby has not really separated himself from his rivals to the same extent as Davis and Hendry did in their prime, so I find his grip on the top spot of the rankings even more remarkable. In any case, he is set to lose it now, whatever happens in this Championship. I think it's fair to say this season hasn't been a successful one for Selby. He did win the China Championship in September, but he hasn't really come close to winning any other titles since. His results in the second part of the season have actually been quite dreadful by his standards, culminating in his early exit from the China Open this month, a tournament he has excelled in in recent years. He's also had some bad luck along the way, such as Robertson playing out of his skin to knock him out of the International Championship, or O'Sullivan beating him thanks to a fluke in the SF of the Northern Ireland Open, but of course the fact that players are raising their game against him is not solely down to luck. He just doesn't scare his opponents in the same way as he did a year or two ago, so it makes sense that fewer players wobble at the prospect of beating him. Another worrying thing is that his last three major titles have all come in China, whereas his results in tournaments back home have been mediocre at best. Now let's look at some positives... For a start, Selby has won three of the last five World Championships, so he has definitely been the king of the Crucible in recent years. He is second to none when it comes to playing snooker over multiple sessions, as shown by his incredible record in major finals over the last five years or so, and he has proved to be impossible to stop at the WC in recent years once he reaches the business end of the tournament. He has got seemingly endless reserves of patience and concentration, he is one of the best tactical and pressure players in the world, and he scores as well as anyone on his day. He is also the king of late-night snooker, which is quite handy in an event such as this one. I don't know... the signs aren't great for him this year, but they weren't great in 2016 either and he still managed to win. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what he can do on this occasion.
A few months ago I expected to have Mark Allen in my final group of contenders here, but he has been a little quiet recently, so I can't quite put him on par with the big three. Earlier I said that Ding is at an age where he should basically be in his prime... Well, Allen is only a year older, and this past year and a half has been the most successful period of his career so far. Just before new year he was the reigning Masters, International and Scottish champion, and he got to the UK final as well. He was one of the very best players in the world at that point in time, and it's only been four months since then, so things can't have changed too dramatically. Allen actually hasn't played as much snooker as some of his rivals recently, deciding to skip most of the minor events since new year, as well as two of the four biggest ranking events since the Masters. I am not sure what the reason for that is, but I can't help thinking it may not have been such a great idea. He is not really coming here with any momentum now, and his record at the Crucible in recent years has not been the best. In fact, last year was the first time in seven years that he even reached the QF, although to be fair to him, some players really did play tremendously well against him in previous years. I do hope we see the kind of form he showed in the first half of the season, because the stuff he played to win the International Championship was some of the best snooker anyone has played all season. His scoring around the black and pink spot area has been just tremendous recently, and he has always had the fighting spirit to compete in these long matches, regardless of the result. And now he also has the belief he can win these big titles, having won two of the biggest titles snooker has to offer in the recent past. Another thing I like about Allen is that he also enjoys playing mind games with his opponents at times, and he is very good at pushing on once he gets an advantage and also at limiting his losses when he goes behind, which is a great attribute to have when it comes to playing matches over multiple sessions. Looking at the draw here, I definitely think Allen should make at least the QF, and I'm sure no one would particularly want to play him in the latter stages this year.
That just leaves the three players I consider to be the big favourites for this year's World title.
Let's start with Neil Robertson. A year and a half ago he reached one of the lowest points of his career by dropping out of the top16 and missing out on a place in the Masters, and at that point I honestly didn't think he would ever quite get back to being the kind of force in the game that he was previously. Well, here we are now, and Robertson has not only got himself back into the top4 of the rankings, but has also enjoyed one of the most successful seasons of his entire career so far, getting to six finals and winning three of them. Of course seasons are difficult to compare, mainly because there are a lot more tournaments to be won these days than there were when Robertson first rose to the top of the game, but winning three titles is always impressive. The China Open is the one that stands out the most, being second only to the WC in terms of prize money on offer. It was a weird tournament in way, with most of the top players playing really poorly in it, so in the end Robertson won it quite easily without ever coming across anyone remotely in his league. It was kind of similar to the underwhelming opposition O'Sullivan beat to win the UK title this season, so I guess it's fair to say that two of the biggest ranking events this season were a little bit disappointing on the whole. But I digress... Robertson also had the misfortune of coming up against the likes of O'Sullivan and Allen in inspired form on several occasions this season, which probably stopped him winning even more titles. Recently he said in an interview that he would be disappointed to only win one World title over the course of his career, so I guess the motivation is still there for him in a big way. He actually has something to prove at the Crucible, having lost in the early rounds for three years in a row now. It's been known to happen for players to run out of steam at the Crucible after really good seasons, but somehow it's difficult to imagine it could happen to Robertson here. He just about has the easiest draw he could have possibly wished for, facing one of the big outsiders in his opening match (yeah, I wanted to finish this before the draw was made, but I missed it by a mile :smile
, probably followed by an out-of-sorts Murphy, so he really should make the QF before he has to play someone in good form. I don't think many players can match Robertson's scoring this season, which has probably been his greatest strength, and he seems to have regained the kind of mental toughness that was so typical for him when he first started winning titles 13 years ago. There could be a danger that Robertson puts too much pressure on himself to succeed here, but if he can play anything like the snooker he has played throughout the season, there are not many players who can match him over three or four sessions.Judd Trump is one of the few that could, but of course they are in opposite halves here, so they can't meet before the final. I am not quite sure how Trump is only the 7th seed here, but I guess mediocre results in the WC, the UK and the China Open in the last two seasons have cost him too many points for him to be any higher. This season has probably been the most consistent of Trump's career so far, he looked like a title contender in the vast majority of events he's played in, and he never really had any major setbacks. The only criticism is that he is still not winning big titles with the kind of frequency we've seen from the likes of O'Sullivan and Selby in recent years, but he is definitely on the right track if he continues to put the work in, like he has been doing this season. Obviously his highlight of the season has been winning the Masters, where he actually beat just about as tough a field as one can possibly expect to face, and his demolition of O'Sullivan in the final was most encouraging, especially since he had already beaten O'Sullivan in another final earlier in the season. I think he has matured as a player this season, certainly in regards to his tactical game and decision-making, which is something that hindered him a lot in the past. He's had a couple of really good chances to win the WC already, but there was always just something lacking in his game or in his mental preparation. To be honest, he probably should have beaten Higgins last year, but you could see he didn't really have the confidence when facing a player who had beaten him so many times before on the big stage. Well, Higgins is far away in the draw this time, but unfortunately Trump has landed in arguably the toughest quarter here, potentially having to face the likes of Ding as early as the 2nd round, and O'Sullivan in the QF. Trump is almost 30 now, which used to be the point where players started panicking if they had not won the WC yet, but times are changing now, and there actually hasn't been a champion in their 20s since Robertson in 2010. Trump still has plenty of time to win it, in fact, he could find himself as one of the tournament favourites every year for the next decade. Will this be his year?
And let's conclude with Ronnie O'Sullivan on this occasion. In the last two seasons O'Sullivan has somehow found a way to do something he had been struggling with for most of his career - to convert his ability into titles with great frequency. Okay, there are a lot more titles on offer these days, but it's not as if O'Sullivan is playing in everything. He has actually skipped the vast majority of the minor ranking events, particularly those played outside of the UK, and quite a few of the major ones as well. He has won three ranking and two invitational events this season, lost in the final of another couple of events, and he only played in three other events where he failed to reach the final. He clearly enjoys the events where fewer players are involved and fewer tables are used, so it looks like he's made the decision to target those before any others, a decision that has proved to be a very good one for him. His "style of winning" has actually reminded me a lot of Higgins from a few years ago, in the sense that it's not always the usual story of blowing his opponents away with one-visit snooker, but also a lot of hard-fought matches where he's had to come from behind and use all of his experience over multiple sessions to prevail in the end. It's been said many times before but I think it's worth repeating, what a shame that O'Sullivan was not able to find this kind of mental toughness earlier in his career, who knows how much more he could have won... He has always had a great record in finals, and the last few years have been no exception, with 11 titles out of 15 attempts since 2017. If we get to the business end and O'Sullivan is still in the tournament, I don't think I would back anyone to beat him, with the exception of Selby perhaps. The problem is though, in the last few years O'Sullivan hasn't really brought his best snooker to the Crucible. In fact, in the last four years he lost to players he has a very strong record against, over three sessions, and he looked to be under pressure right from the start without any apparent reason. Perhaps the prospect of chasing records at the Crucible is a bigger burden for him than we are led to believe, or perhaps the prospect of battling it out for 17 days is something that demotivates him, knowing how tough he finds it to stay at venues for extended periods. Well, whatever arguments against his chances one can think of, there is still no doubt he will start this Championship as the favourite, and rightfully so. Even in his 40s his scoring is still second to none, his long-potting is probably better than at any other point in the last decade, and he has all the experience in the world. He also has the luxury of some players doubting whether they can even beat him on the big stage, and that luxury is the result of all the thrashings he has administered over the years. I'm sure he is not finished yet, not by a long shot.
There we are then, that's just about all I have to say before the tournament starts. :smile: For the record, I will be voting for Trump, but it's a very difficult call to make. I will leave the poll open until next weekend, so the results may be a little distorted if people vote after some players have already gone out, but I think two days is not enough time for everyone to get their vote in otherwise.
Looking forward to your opinions. Who do you think is going to win the 2019 World Championship? :smile:
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