Wuxi Classic Preview

Ding Junhui lost to Amateur Oliver Brown

and will be OUT of his home tournament

Bad times for the Chinese Star

Well, the snooker season restarted with the Wuxi Classic Qualifiers played at the South West Snooker Academy.

There was a lot of fun and excitement, as everyone was already missing snooker a little bit, and of course, the fact this is the most successful Chinese tournament - even they put more money on International Championship and China Open - helped with the atmosphere.

TV Audience, Web Audience, and of course, the more presence of top players makes of this, the most important event in China, it was great last two years, with the victories of Walden and Robertson, and have all to be a great event again.

Different as the most of the Chinese events because there are less distractions, and this time of the year, the weather there is a bit more similar to UK.

There was some problems in the Qualifiers played in England, they are:

Thailand players off due to political unrest. Well, it's a fact that we have nothing to do, but it's a big shame on how much Thailand's snooker have lost with this political problems. PC Final was going to be held in Thailand but was cancelled 1 month before; Poomjaeng missed the 2014 Snooker Legends because Thailand actually don't allow peoples to go out of the country, the same problem that made all Thailand players miss both Wuxi and Australia Qualifiers. What's a shame because there's a lot of high potential snooker in Thailand.

But can we say anything?

QualiFiers played in a DIFFERENT COUNTRY. What can I say about? It's just an unbelievable miss that World Snooker keep doing. If the tournament is in China, there's no way it's qualifier could be played in UK. We have a lot of Chinese players that needs to make a long travel to TRY to qualifier, and if they do, they will need to make another big travel back for China to play the event. Why he can't play the qualifier in China as well? Because there is a lot of nice clubs and arenas, no excuse why it is still played in UK. Well, it's why a lot of big names miss events (not the case with this one), the schedule is full of travels, I remember once last year when players made 8/9 international trips in 4 months. World Snooker could make mini tour's and avoid travels every time, allowing players to play in every country, and help with the sport's globalization.

Players who qualify and need to play a wildcard. It's the worst thing World Snooker does. WHY a player, who qualifier at the same way as any other, needs to play an extra match? For example: Andrew Norman qualified at the same way as Neil Robertson did, why he needs to play a wildcard match? It's a BIG DISRESPECT with the players.

Let's have a look of what happened at the qualifiers

We had 5 days of snooker in SWSA, and I will comment all them here:

Day 1:

This day saw the withdraw of Ali Carter, due to a diagnostic which showed he have Lung Cancer, his second cancer in 2 years. His opponent was Sam Baird, who qualified without necessary of play. GET WELL SOON ALI!

Neil Robertson, Shaun Murphy and Michael Holt got easy victories as current Shoot-Out Champion Dominic Dale failed in qualify while Andrew Higginson was punished with 3 frames as he reached late for his match, and was whitewashed in the hands of Joe O`Connor.

Day 2:

The second day saw the qualifications of promising player Gary Wilson, Barry Hawkins, Yu DeLu, Martin Gould and Peter Lines, as Matthew Stevens, Peter Ebdon and Gerard Greene suffered shock loses, while Home Favourite DING JUNHUI WAS WHITEWASHED BY AMATEUR Oliver Brown. Well, Ding is Chinese, but the travel to England, for after back to China isn't an excuse as he lives in UK. The truly is that Ding is playing bad snooker recently - even nobody admits that - having lost in first round of World Championship, PC Final, The Masters and now losing Wuxi Classic on Qualifier stage.

Day 3:

The third day saw triumphs for Marco Fu, Ryan Day, Michael White, Cao Yupeng, Stephen Maguire, Judd Trump, Graeme Dott and youngstar Scott Donaldson, highlight for Maguire who played some superb snooker to whitewash his opponent, Alex Pagulayan, with breaks of 47, 76, 60, 69 and 57. It's a nice sign as we didn't saw Stephen playing this type of snooker in a long time.

Day 4:

The fourth day saw the withdraw of the four Thailand Players as King, Wenbo, Perry, Guodong, Gilbert, Milkins and John Higgins guaranteed his travels to china while Brecel had a massive unlucky losing in the decider against Craig Steadman. Brecel was needing 3 snooker in the 5th frame, and forced re-spot but Craig potted black to put him 4-1 up. Then Brecel got 3 frames in a row playing some good snooker, and force decider, after being 4-1 down, then Craig made a 51 in his first visit in the decider, so Luca could never be in front again.

Day 5:

The last day of qualifier saw Ricky Walden struggling a lot to beat Swail, while Kurt Maflin, Jack Lisowski, David Morris, Tony Drago, Mark Williams and the World Champion Mark Selby also qualified.

But it wasn't a good day for thousands of fans as Jimmy White just lost to Fraser Patrick and won't be in China, I mean, he won't be playing in China at least.

Well, after this thrilling qualification times, let's have a look at the draw:

Top of the Draw:

Defending Champion Neil Robertson is my favorite not just to into the Final, but to win the event as well. John Higgins, Stuart Bingham, Shaun Murphy, Marco Fu, and principally Barry Hawkins can give to him a tough match, but at the way he is playing, completing his triple crown last year, he is my favorite to lift the trophy here.

There is also promising players like Gary Wilson, Kurt Maflin and Yu DeLu (He needs to play a wildcard

match) who can make a good run here.

Bottom of the Draw:

This is really the hardiest part of the draw, featuring players like World Champion Selby, Dott, Perry, Trump, Higgins, Williams, Walden, Maguire, Gould, Milkins, and also the promising young players like Guodong, Yupeng and M White.

Selby is always very regular, it's a rare fact if we do not see him in the semi-finals of every event he plays on, but it's a very good test to see what our new World Champion does at this very, very tough draw.
My predict goes to a final between Judd Trump and Neil Robertson, with Selby defeated in the Semis against Trump.

The Wuxi Classic starts next day 23 (Monday), but before it the Asian Tour 1 (Yixing Open), also in China, will be played from 17 to 21.

I'm delighted to announce that Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil's made an exclusive interview with promising young player Dylan Craig. He is the current European U-18 and Scottish U-21 Champion, having won the Scottish U-18, U-16 and U-14 as well.

I will be posting on the blog soon.

Well, thank you for reading, I just want to say that I wish all the best for the Captain Carter, I hope he get well soon.

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