Here are WST reports on what hapened at the World Grand Prix yesterday

Afternoon session

CHAMP ALLEN FIRES THREE CENTURIES

Mark Allen made a tremendous start to the defence of his Spreadex World Grand Prix title as he made three centuries in a 4-2 victory over Jack Lisowski.

Allen beat Judd Trump 10-9 in the final of this event a year ago, and comes into 2024 full of confidence having won the Champion of Champions and the Shoot Out late in 2023. He looked very sharp from the start today as breaks 103 and 110 put him 2-0 ahead. Lisowski recovered to 2-2 with 93 and 75, but a high quality contest went the way of Allen thanks to further runs of 108 and 78.

“Jack is one of the most talented players on the tour so it was a tough draw,” said the Northern Irishman. “It was a very good standard today. But at 2-2 it was in the balance, in these short races the margins are very fine. I have generally done well in the past when I have been defending titles so hopefully I can go far this week.”

Allen’s opponent in the last 16 is Zhang Anda, who won his first ranking title in November at the International Championship. Zhang saw off Dominic Dale 4-2 with top breaks of 75, 81 and 74. World number three Allen added: “Zhang has been the surprise package of this season, no one saw that coming. He has been on the tour for a long time but now suddenly looks like a world beater.“

Ding Junhui edged out Ricky Walden 4-3 thanks to a break of 72 in the decider, while Noppon Saengkham beat Xiao Guodong 4-1 with a top run of 81.

Evening session

SELBY TO FACE TRUMP IN QUARTERS

Mark Selby stepped up his bid for a first title in ten months as he beat Ali Carter 4-3 in the second round of the Spreadex World Grand Prix to set up a quarter-final clash with Judd Trump.

Playing in front of his home fans at the Morningside Arena in Leicester, Selby hopes to draw inspiration from the fact that his last silverware – the WST Classic in March 2023 – came at the same venue. The four-time World Champion scraped over the line in his opening match against Yuan Sijun on Monday, but tonight’s performance was more convincing as he finished strongly to beat Masters runner-up Carter.

A break of 62 gave Selby the opening frame, then Carter came from 50-0 down to snatch the second with a 66 clearance. World number five Selby fell 2-1 behind before firing runs of 105 and 62 to lead 3-2. Carter levelled with a 103 and had first scoring chance in the decider, but made just 7 then missed a tricky red to a top corner, playing with the rest. Selby punished him with a break of 77 to reach his 94th ranking event quarter-final.

“It was a good match from start to finish,” said 40-year-old Selby. “I was relieved to see him miss the red in the decider and I managed to hold myself together and make a good break. Ali is on form at the moment and full of confidence so it’s a good win for me. I always want to do well, playing in my home city. It would mean a lot to win this title, having it in Leicester makes it extra special.”

Trump needed just 58 minutes to see off Lyu Hoatian 4-0 with top breaks of 55, 51 and 72. World number two Trump is the only player to win this event three times and hopes he is building towards the form he showed in October when he reeled off three consecutive titles. 

“I would like to have scored heavier. I am getting to 50 and not winning the frame, and sometimes you get punished for that,” he said. “I am trying to up my tempo, sometimes I feel I have bogged myself down a bit. If I can play at 17 or 18 seconds a shot, like I do in practice, that helps me play better. I feel better in myself this week. I have a good affinity with this tournament, which is always in the back of my mind and that helps with confidence. There are so many big events coming up. Everyone is super sharp and this is one of the better tournaments on the calendar.”

Asked if he was surprised to see a trio of big names – Neil Robertson, Luca Brecel and Kyren Wilson – miss out on this event, Trump replied: “The standard is picking up and you can’t afford to take your foot off the gas. If you miss events at the start of the season then it’s hard to catch up. It’s a fair event because everyone has the same chance to qualify. It’s good to see a few different names in the field and it keeps everyone sharp because you don’t want to miss out.“

China’s Cao Yupeng knocked out Barry Hawkins in the opening round, and took another scalp by white-washing Shaun Murphy 4-0. Cao, who was runner-up at the Shoot Out last month, scored breaks of 50, 70, 55 and 62 as he reached his seventh ranking event quarter-final. 

His next opponent will be Mark Williams, who scored a 4-1 win over Hossein Vafaei with top breaks of 108, 77 and 75. Vafaei walked out of the arena without shaking hands at the end of the match, but Williams insisted this was down to a misunderstanding.

He said: “I pulled Hossein up about it afterwards and he said it was because I slapped my leg at the end. But I only did that because I shouldn’t have gone for the pink in the last frame (when he led by 52 points with two reds left), I should have played safe. I thought he would have come back to the table and played for snookers so I was fuming with myself. Then he just stormed off.”

From what transpired in the press Hossein “misunderstood” Mark’s gesture. Mark acted in frustration and Hossein “read” it as a celebration and thought it was disrespectful. We already know how sensitive Hossein can be when it comes to “respect” and maybe cultural differences played a part here. Anyway… very much a storm in a cup of tea in my view.

Mark Allen is the defending champion and was interviewed. He expressed his views about how little power players actually have… as reported by David Caulfield on his always excellent blog:

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Mark Allen has doubts on whether or not the WPBSA Players board can wield enough power to influence significant change in snooker.

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But while questions remain over the lack of power that players possess, Allen thinks that the WPBSA Players board will provide only a limited effect.

“I don’t know how much I should say on this,” Mark Allen told Stephen Hendry on the latest episode of the Cue Tips Youtube channel.

“But I genuinely believe that, no matter who is on that board, things aren’t going to change. I just don’t think they have enough power on the Players board.”

“I know Matt (Selt) has got on, and I voted for him. I think he’s our only hope, even though there are other ones on it.

“I think he’s very opinionated, but he’s quite articulate. He speaks well, so I think if he can’t get any change done from the inside, I don’t think we’ve got any chance.

“But I think it might take something a bit more drastic than that.

“With regards to Macau and that, it would be great if we got to a scenario where the players can play in whatever they want.

“I had a good meeting with the WST board and that at the UK Champs, and they did open my eyes to some of their reasoning behind those decisions.

“I’m not saying I agree with them, but I do understand it. 

“What I try and say is, there were some players who were offered the chance to go to Macau and get maybe £100,000 for turning up. 

“And there’s a tournament in Belfast, which is obviously my favourite tournament of the year, and there’s £80,000 to the winner.

“So, like, you do the math. Why would you go to Belfast if you’re getting offered (that)? So World Snooker have to, in my opinion, make these events more appealing.

“If there’s £150,000 for the winner in Belfast, people probably don’t even come and play in Macau.

“So I think there’s a bit of wiggle room that World Snooker can do better as well.”

Shaun Murphy also expresses his views and David reports on that too.

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“I think what’s happened in recent months with the Macau Five and those rival tour situations, there’s quite a lot going on behind the scenes,” Murphy said on the OneFourSeven Snooker Podcast.

“Some of which I can talk about, and some of which I can’t, with promoters pretending to be players’ representatives out in China.”

“There’s a lot of lies being told. There’s a lot of underhanded tactics being used by a lot of people.

“I think the players have woken up to their own commercial power, and they’ve realised that they can have a say in this game.

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“I think the players have gone, ‘do you know what? I think we can have a good robust debate, a professional debate around these topics. I’m going to get involved, cast my vote, and see what happens.’ – it’s great, great news.

“(But) you very quickly have to understand who is responsible for what. The Players Board is as it sounds. It’s for the players, by the players.”

“We are not commercial agents. We are not necessarily that commercially minded, and we’re looking at it from the point of view of players trying to improve players’ issues.

“We want to improve things like, how long it takes players to get paid from Chinese events. Currently, it’s between eight to ten weeks, which we think is ridiculous.

“They are the types of issues that we’re going to be looking at.

“We’re currently into a massive debate over the future of the game in terms of bringing back a full tiered system across all events versus the flat 128 draws.

“It’s just not as straightforward as you might think. There’s lots of issues in and around that.

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“You run into that brick wall of course, where you realise that a player’s aspirations and a player’s dreams don’t always line up with the commercialisation of a sport.

“WST are a profit-making business. They’re not there to service the whims and wishes of the players. They are there to make money through the promotion of snooker.

“So those things don’t always align. I guess our job as board members is to keep the players as happy as possible.”

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The “underline” has been added by me. What Mark Allen says is very much in line with what I wrote some weeks ago. Players are self-employed, they will have no retirement money when they stop playing other than what they made by themselves, and they should mot have to face restrictions when it comes to what events they play in.

Shaun Murphy, unsurprisingly, is more “moderate”. There is one bit in his quotes that really caught my eye: the one about going back to a tiered system. I’m all for it and I have said it before. The flat draw is far too brutal and doesn’t help young players development. I’m not however in favour of having the early rounds played in cubicles weeks before the event and watched only by a man and his dog. It has to be right before the “main” event, televised or streamed, with spectators and at or close to the event proper venue. I know that some players – most notably Barry Pinches – are in favour of keeping the flat draw, claiming it’s fairer. It’s no fairer than having all kids in a school taking the exact same exams, no matter their age and actual level. Have to face matches of progressive difficulty is much fairer and helpful to development.