Shaun Murphy beat Stuart Bingham by 10-9, yesterday evening to claim the World Grand Prix 2016 trophy. Congratulations to him !
It wasn’t the highest standard at times but there was drama a plenty as each player looked to dominated the match in spells. Despite losing Stuart will take home a lot of confidence after his excellent run this week. Shaun had been playing well for some time without getting the results and this is the reward for sticking to his positive approach to the game through and through.
Shaun’s win also means that he’s now overtaken Ronnie in the rankings: he’s up to n°4, with Ronnie n°5.
Matt Huart , as always, gives us a detailed analysis of the run to the Crucible. Read it here, on his blog. This is only an excerpt:
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With the final cut-off prior to the Betfred World Championship due fall after the China Open on 4th April 2016, if the draw were to be made today under the latest in-running race to the Crucible, this is how it would look:
Provisional 2016 World Championship Draw
Stuart Bingham (1) / Qualifier
Liang Wenbo (16) / Qualifier
Mark Allen (9) / Qualifier
Joe Perry (8) / Qualifier
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Ronnie O’Sullivan (5) / Qualifier
Martin Gould (12) / Qualifier
Mark Williams (13) / Qualifier
Shaun Murphy (4) / Qualifier
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Neil Robertson (3) / Qualifier
Marco Fu (14) / Qualifier
Barry Hawkins (11) / Qualifier
Judd Trump (6) / Qualifier
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John Higgins (7) / Qualifier
Ricky Walden (10) / Qualifier
Michael White (15) / Qualifier
Mark Selby (2) / Qualifier
What can change?
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With Ronnie O’Sullivan now having completed his schedule prior to Sheffield, not participating in either Manchester or Beijing, his final seeding will now depend upon the progress of those around him in both of those events. Standing fifth at the time of writing, Judd Trump and John Higgins are the two best to nudge him further down the list if they can put a run together between now and the final balls being potted in China.
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You can find all the detailed results on cuetracker, thanks to Ron Florax.
