We had two very different semi finals, one was totally one-sided, as Liang Wenbo never looked at the races against a very solid Barry Hawkins, one very hard-fought as Ryan Day came back from 4-2 down and needing 4 snookers in frame 8 to beat Marco Fu by 6-4.

Barry Hawkins 6-1 Liang Wenbo (Worldsnooker report)

Friday 10 Feb 2017 09:59PM

Barry Hawkins crushed Liang Wenbo 6-1 to reach the Ladbrokes World Grand Prix final in Preston.

The Hawk is already accustomed to lifting ranking silverware at the historic Guild Hall venue. He won the Players Championship Grand Final in 2014, where he thrashed Gerard Greene 4-0.  That week he won a first prize of £100,000, which matches the total he would receive for victory this week. The win guarantees Hawkins a place in the top 16 on this season’s money list and therefore a place in the Players Championship.

The 37-year-old has been one of the tour’s most consistent players in 2016/17, but has endured a series of near misses  in his quest for silverware. He led Mark King 5-1 in the Northern Ireland Open final, only to lose out 9-8. He was dumped out of the UK Championship by one of the performances of the season against Fergal O’Brien, who made five centuries in a 6-5 win. The Hawk also let a 5-1 lead slip in his recent Masters semi-final with Joe Perry, which he lost 6-5.

Liang was unable to recover from yesterday evening’s late night thriller against Perry which he won 4-3. The Firecracker has struggled previously against Hawkins and that continued tonight, with Liang losing for the fourth time out of the five meetings that they have had.

The Hawk flew out of the traps, going 2-0 up in under 25 minutes. However, English Open Champion Liang responded with 68 to halve the deficit.

From that point onwards Hawkins barely allowed his opponent a sniff, displaying savage scoring power. Runs of 106, 92, 57 and 120 in consecutive frames saw him burst over the line and book his spot in Sunday’s final, where he will face either Marco Fu or Ryan Day.

“I was really pleased with that performance,” said Hawkins. “I don’t know if it is the best I’ve ever played but it’s up there. I’ve been getting close lately. Everyone knows I’ve lost a couple of sore ones, but if I play well I’ve got a chance. I’ve just got to enjoy the occasion really.

“When I first looked at my draw here I thought this was going to be a tough one,” said the two-time ranking event winner. “I’m absolutely delighted to beat someone like Judd, then Neil and Liang, who has been in great form this season.”

“I don’t know whether it is a coincidence I won my last ranking title here, but I do feel comfortable here and I really like the venue.”

Ryan Day 6-4 Marco Fu (Worldsnooker report)

Saturday 11 Feb 2017 11:59PM

Ryan Day produced a magnificent comeback to defeat Marco Fu 6-4 and reach the Ladbrokes World Grand Prix final in Preston.

Since Anthony Hamilton’s win at last week’s German Masters, many people now deem Day to be the greatest player yet to have lifted a ranking title. The Welshman, who has been on the tour for 18 years, has reached the quarter-final stage or beyond 20 times, but is yet to convert a title. He’ll have a chance to shrug off that tag tomorrow as he faces Barry Hawkins for the title.

The Hong Kong potter was competing in his second semi-final of 2017 having reached the last four of the Masters in January. He’s shown imperious form throughout the season and won his third ranking title in December at the Scottish Open. However, Fu was unable to hold off the Welshman this evening.

The early exchanges were characterised by relentless break building power. It was Fu who started off the tie at a blistering pace, making a break of 125 to take the opener. The world number 24 then responded with 72 to level the scores. Fu made 84 to move 2-1 ahead, before Day restored parity at the interval.

When the players returned Fu once again opened proceedings with a century, stringing together a run of 123. The three-time ranking event winner looked set to reach another final when he went 4-2 up. Day then moved within one, before an extraordinary eighth frame.

Fu got in first and appeared to have wrapped up the frame, leading 76-12. Day needed four snookers and looked as if he was going to stay in his chair, after a brief moment’s thought he returned to the table. With the green, brown and blue close together there was a big target for the Welshman to set about finding the snookers. He got them and cleared the table with a break of 30 to deliver a dagger blow to his opponent. Day then won a nervy final two frames to reach the final and secure a minimum of £50,000, the biggest payday of his career.

Day remarked: “I was within a fraction of asking the referee to rack the balls up in that eighth frame. I thought I would give it one more crack with the balls set favourably up.

“We are all here to lift the trophy. There was 32 players at the start of the week and now it’s down to two. It’s going to be a bit of a fight tomorrow and may the best man win,” said Day. “I’ve been playing well all week and there’s no reason why I can’t win tomorrow. In Barry Hawkins I have one of the form players as an opponent. But I’m going to prepare properly and give it my best shot.”

Fu was in reflective mood afterwards and remains positive about his form going ahead into a busy period leading up to the World Championship.

Fu said: “I’m disappointed to lose the match but also relieved it’s over. The way I was playing I didn’t deserve to be in the final. I’m really pleased for Ryan and I hope he can win his first ranking title tomorrow.

“I think I’m playing well but it’s just small things here and there stopping me getting results, but I’m happy with my form.”

Note that the £50,000 mentioned should be £40,000 according to the official points tariff published on WPBSA site. Probably a typo.

So today we have Barry Hawkins v Ryan Day for the title. Personally I fancy Hawkins to win it. Why? Because he is an event winner already, in this very arena as well,  and knows how to handle such occasions, because he’s extra-solid under pressure usually, because his all-round game is one of the best and because he will be rested. Ryan Day played outstanding yesterday evening, his safety game was out of this world towards the end of the match. But it was a late night and it may take its toll. Also, Ryan has been in three finals already and never won one. Worse, he was in front in the last two he played and lost: Dominic Dale won 7 frames on the trot to beat him in Shanghai in 2007. On may play on Ryan’s mind. But of course, this was nearly 10 years ago, and today is another match, another place and another opportunity.

Well, well, well … none of the posters boys are still in the mix as we reach the semi finals stage.

The Last 16 round took its toll of big names with Ronnie, Judd Trump, Ali Carter and Ding Junhui tumbling out. Ronnie, Ali and Judd had played very well in the first round but fell to inspired opponents, unable to raise their game to the level they usually display.

Ronnie and Judd in particular both lost by 4-1, to Neil Robertson and Barry Hawkins respectively. Both Neil and Barry had been brilliant in the last 16 and both struggled in the next round. As they met each other, one of them had to go through and it’s Barry who managed it but a rather bitter Judd remarked on twitter that Barry had made more mistakes in the first frame of the QF  than he had in the whole match they had played in the last 16. Ronnie said nothing … but he could have said the same because Neil was nowhere near the level he had shown against him.

In general I feel that nobody plays consistently in the last few weeks, except Marco Fu who is still in the draw. I believe that the amount of snooker they have to play is maybe too much: there is a lot of travel, no break and very little time for practice.  Match play is of course necessary to be sharp, but practice is also needed to assess ones technique and work on specific aspects of it. And of course there is accumulated tiredness.

The Defending Champion, Shaun Murphy departed in the QF stage at the hands of Ryan Day who will now surely want to avoid the unwanted “best player who never won a title” tag. He has his work cut out though as he will face an in-form Marco Fu in the semi finals.

The other semi final will see Liang Wenbo play Barry Hawkins.

All detailed results are on Cuetracker. (or will be there soon)

Ronnie lost by 4-1 to Neil Robertson, this afternoon.

Here are the match stats:

As you can see, it was a pretty one-sided match and Neil played very well; he totally deserved the win. A key factor was that Ronnie’s potting let him down: he missed a few balls that he would normally get from the very start of the match, which of course gave Neil confidence and put Ronnie himself under pressure. Basically once Neil went in, he won the frame in one visit, that’s how well he played. In frame 4, the whitewash looked very much on the cards when Neil unexpectedly missed, being  56-11 in front with 67 on the table. The way things had gone, I never expected Ronnie to win the frame from there … but he did despite losing position on the last pink he needed. But that’s as far as it went. In the next frame, Ronnie missed a difficult red, and Neil sealed the victory with another big break.

The only positive is that Ronnie really tried his hardest. Twice in the first frame, he came back to the table, needing far too many snookers to have any hope to win it but to try and get some table time and feel of the conditions.

Here is the report on Worldsnooker

Thursday 9 Feb 2017 06:47PM

Neil Robertson produced a sparkling performance to dispatch Ronnie O’Sullivan 4-1 and reach the quarter-finals of the Ladbrokes World Grand Prix in Preston.

The Australian had lost the previous three meetings between the pair and was seeking  revenge for his recent defeat at the Masters.

The Thunder from Down Under stamped his authority from the off, making breaks of 80, 70 and 43, to storm to a 3-0 advantage. That took him within one frame of inflicting a first whitewash defeat on O’Sullivan in a full ranking event since the 2006 China Open against James Wattana.

However, the five-time World Champion managed to get on the scoreboard, winning the fourth frame on the final pink. Robertson wasn’t to be denied and charged to the line with a break of 83 to secure victory.

“I worked really hard on the practice table yesterday evening and put a lot of things right,” said Robertson. “I was full of confidence, knowing in myself that I was going to be playing very well. That was probably one of the better performances I’ve had against Ronnie. There wasn’t a lot he could have done about the result. My safety was fantastic and long potting very good. It was probably the performance of the season so far for me.”

Here are some pictures courtesy of Tai Chengzhe. Thanks Tai! 

Videos of interest:

The match:

Here is the match analysis by Alan McManus and Neal Foulds with the winner:

Missing Clip

At the end of this video, Neal Foulds conducts an interview with Ronnie, who looked quite down. True to his word he keeps it short, but without the robot impression: Neil played very well and deserved the win, as for himself it was one of these days where nothing worked.

Yesterday saw the conclusion of the last 32 round in Preston and there were a few surprising results: Mark Selby, Stuart Bingham and John Higgins all lost their opening match.

Mark Selby went out to a very good Martin Gould who displayed the kind of form that brought him up to the semi finals last week in his first title defence in Berlin. Mark of course never gives up and from 3-1 down forced a decider, but Martin held it together and took the match with a break of 54. Martin also made a great 142 total clearance in frame 4, his highest ever in competition quite surprisingly: his previous best was “only” 139.

Stuart Bingham continued to struggle and went out to Ryan Day, a man many now consider as the “best player who never won a title”. Well Ryan is still on course to get rid of that unwanted mantle.

John Higgins lost to Michael White in a very high scoring match: every frame had a least one break over 50, in fact there were 8 in total over the 7 frames they played. I didn’t watch that one, so I can’t really comment, but this comes as a surprise to me: as ferocious a potter Michael is, he’s no match for Higgins in the tactical department.

Shaun Murphy is the Defending Champion and he looked in very good form in beating Michael Holt.

Ding Junhui and Neil Robertson both went through the last 32 round in a rather unconvincing manner.

Ding, who lost his mother very recently, was understandably a bit off colours, but still did enough to get the better of Yu Delu.

Neil Robertson started impressively: he scored 108 and 78 to go 2-0 in front.  Then Ricky Walden won a very scrappy third frame after Neil missed unexpectedly. From there Neil somehow completely lost his game and struggled through the rest of the match. He won by 4-2 eventually but was lucky to face an opponent who, according to Clive Everton, was suffering from a back injury and indeed was moving awkwardly around the table and wincing on the shots. Neil will be Ronnie’s opponent this afternoon but it would be presumptuous to write him off because of his poor performance yesterday: every match is different.

All other results went according to expectations, my expectations anyway. Anthony Hamilton lost by 4-0 to Mark Allen and this was absolutely no surprise to me. Anthony went through a very exhausting last week, physically and emotionally, and, after the high of his first ranking title in Berlin, an anti-climax was to be expected.

Ronnie’s win over Yan Bingtao yesterday was covered here.

You can find all detailed results on Cuetracker.

Worldsnooker has published the draw and format for the Welsh Open 2017 yesterday.

Here it is:

Tuesday 7 Feb 2017 09:01PM

The draw and format for next week’s Coral Welsh Open is now available.

Click here for the draw

Click here for the format

The tournament runs from February 13 to 19 at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, with 128 player battling for the Ray Reardon Trophy. It’s the last of the season’s Coral Home Nations series.

Ronnie is the Defending Champion and seed n°1 and he’s been dealt a very tough opener: he will face Tom Ford on Tuesday 1pm (UK time). Should he win this match, he could face Mark Davis in the next, and possibly Fergal O’Brien in the last 32 … who’s saying top seeds have easy draws?