The 2023 British Open got underway yesterday at the Centaur in Cheltenham. Many big names were in action as the round 1 “held-over” matches were scheduled on this first day.
Pistol Remains In The Hunt As Bullet Drops Out
Mark Allen is still in contention to dethrone Ronnie O’Sullivan from the top of the world rankings after a 4-1 defeat of Anthony McGill, but World Champion Luca Brecel’s chances of reaching pole position ended on day one of the Cazoo British Open in Cheltenham.
World number three Allen was Player of the Year last season after winning three ranking titles, including the UK Championship. Following O’Sullivan pulling out of this week’s event, Allen now knows he needs to win the tournament to become world number one.
Next up Allen faces a tough assignment against world number eight Kyren Wilson in what is a repeat of the 2018 Masters final, which Allen won. Wilson earned his progression thanks to a 4-1 defeat of Martin O’Donnell.
It was McGill who claimed the opener this afternoon, before Allen took control. Breaks of 57, 81 and 94 moved the Northern Irishman 3-1 ahead and he took a 41-minute fifth to get over the line.
“It would tick a box as one of my career goals is to get to world number one. I’ve got a long way to go before I start thinking about that. There are a lot of matches ahead of me. If I was in the final here on Sunday, it might be bittersweet to do it without Ronnie in the event,” said 37-year-old Allen.
“It was a horrible draw for Luca playing Ding in round one here. It doesn’t get much tougher than that. He is another one that I’m sure at some point this season will get to world number one. I hope that we have a back and forth battle and go for it between us and Ronnie. It is up to us to stamp our authority on that world number one spot.”
Brecel faced a blockbuster clash with China’s Ding Junhui, knowing he just had to win two matches to put himself in line for the world number one spot.
Ding had led 3-0, but Crucible king Brecel came roaring back to force a decider. However, it was the 14-time ranking event winner who took it to win 4-3 and end Brecel’s ambitions of topping the rankings.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=NZYJeeE7JW8%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26enablejsapi%3D1%26origin%3Dhttps%3A
Australia’s 23-time ranking event winner Neil Robertson is searching a first individual in over a year, but he got off to a strong start this week with a 4-1 defeat of Welshman Jamie Clarke. Robertson fired in breaks of 55, 77, 50 and 70 on his way to victory this afternoon and now faces Si Jiahui tomorrow.
Judd Trump survived a scare to beat Anton Kazakov 4-2. The Ukrainian crafted a fine break of 86 to take the opener and then claimed the second to secure a surprise 2-0 lead. However, Trump made contributions of 67, 67 and 116 on his way to turning the tie around and emerging victorious.
Defending champion Ryan Day whitewashed Sean O’Sullivan 4-0 to book his progression, while four-time World Champion Mark Selby beat fellow Leicester cueman Ben Woollaston 4-2.
Shaun Murphy beat Rebecca Kenna 4-1 to set up a mouthwatering clash with Jack Lisowski in the last 64. Lisowski defeated Joe O’Connor 4-3 to make it through.
The truth is that Luca was pretty poor at the start of the match, probably still tired after making it to the final in Shanghai on Saturday. Ding typically struggled to finish the job, but eventually did it this time.
As usual, many matches are not reported on in this report. All detailed results are available on snooker.org.
One match that’s not reported on is Barry Hawkins trashing of young Stan Moody on the main television table. Barry, who won the 2023 European Masters end August, scored breaks of 78, 60, 70 and 68, in a complete demolition of his young opponent. Now, why on earth, was this match on the main table when, Ryan Day, the defending Champion was also in action in that same session, as was Mark Selby who faced Ben Wollaston? Somehow I can’t help but think that this decision would never have been taken it it wasn’t to showcase Stan Moody, Shaun Murphy’s protégé. If I’m right, then it backfired spectacularly. This match was as one-sided as it gets and only showed how far away young Stan is from the required professional level. It’s good to showcase young talents, but it only works if they are good enough to give their more experienced opponent some decent opposition. If they are totally outplayed, and can’t show anything, it’s not good for the viewers, and not good either for the youngster whose confidence might seriously suffer from the experience.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
There are many levels to the game of snooker, such as, social, club, league, county, pro-am, national, international and ultimately, the professionals on the World Snooker Tour.
There are many ways to promote the game of snooker to players and non-players alike.
The main way is of course on TV but many fans do like to go to watch live events.
Live events are not all WST ranking events. They can be invitational events with the top players, exhibitions by the professionals, Pro-Am events such as the World Seniors.
Some of the professionals do “an evening with” type events where they talk about their life in snooker and have the audience ask them about it.
Others have been to visit schools to promote the game.
I am firmly of the opinion that the WST should be for players who have proven themselves to be of the required standard to compete at that level.
The WST is not a place for anyone to gain experience or learn to play the game.
WST TV matches should be reserved for the top level matches and not to ‘showcase’ players or give anyone the experience of playing on TV tables.
Yes, what you say is quite true, and it’s the reason why I favour moving away from this closed 128-player ‘ranking tournament’ model. We do need to allow young players (amongst others) a development pathway, but not to be thrust into every event. Certainly someone like Stan Moody should have been given more protection.
The China model is an interesting idea, although a 12-year old playing in next month’s Wuhan Open is too extreme (but he did qualify legitimately from a local U21 event).
We also need to educate audiences that there is more to watching snooker than just following the same dozen players every week.
“The truth is that Luca was pretty poor at the start of the match, probably still tired after making it to the final in Shanghai on Saturday”
The Shanghai final would have been 8 days ago, when Luca played Ding…
Yes, it was a strange decision to try and showcase Stan Moody. Let him take his time and get used to matchplay.
Ding wasn’t at his best, but since it’s his first match in the UK this season, I thought Alan McManus was very harsh. We’ve seen before that players can remodel aspects of their technique quite quickly, and indeed Ding has done it before.