Snooker World Cup - Group Stage Review plus Quarter Finals Preview

Saturday's Quarter Finals

The World Cup running in Wuxi has been an amazing success, media is commenting a lot about this, the teams out there are really competitive and crowd is getting bigger, hopefully even better in the weekend, for the Knock-Out stages which starts just in a few hours live on EuroSport.

Well, before talking about the Quarter Finals, I want to have a quick word about the Group Stage because the teams really impressed me there, every team seems to be competitive and who could doubt it? England is out! England came to this event as the big favorite with a team featuring the last two Crucible conquerors - Mark Selby & Stuart Bingham, but despite having won 4 out of 5 matches played, the English machine team couldn't go past the Group D, with impressing China B and Thailand coming through. And what about Pakistan, couldn't qualify but had 3 wins in Group C including victories over Australia and Northern Ireland.

Figueiredo (left) & Santos (right)

But obviously we got to focus on Brazil, nobody really knew much about us but I think the respect on Brazilian Snooker will grow a lot after this World Cup, after losing to Belgium in the decider at the 1st Round, Brazil made history in a historic defeat of the Scot team of John Higgins and Stephen Maguire, by the way very commented match by Ronnie O`Sullivan on his Midweek Matchzone show on Phoenix FM, where he congratulated a lot and looked really impressed with Brazil's team, principally Igor Figueiredo, who he practiced with at the SWSA before the 2015 World Snooker Championship. After beating Scotland with a frame to spare, Brazil also didn't need the last frame to beat Iran and Malaysia, but a sad 0-5 defeat against Hong Kong in the last round ended our dream.

As a Brazilian, I'm really proud of them and the way they represented Brazil, principally Ítaro Santos who was very patriot in the interviews, and despite not qualifying, that's the biggest result of Brazil's Snooker history and we have to celebrate a lot to have done the job with the dream Scot team, and of course we go home with a positive balance, 3 matches won and 2 matches lost, 13 frames won and 12 frames lost. We took a big step and that will help to make Snooker more popular in Brazil, we will come stronger in 2017 thirsty for a result even better, I assure you.

See Group's final tables

So, let's talk a bit now about the Quarter Finals, which I think it's gonna be very interesting to watch:

China A (6) Scotland

China A haven't lost yet and they've got a balanced team with two good players, Ding Junhui and Xiao Guodong. Scotland at the other hand, have the strongest team of the Cup, Higgins and Maguire aren't only great players, but also close friends.

I don't think Maguire is playing very well, but they have a stronger team, it's fact, and China A haven't got a real test yet, they were in a weak group compared to Scotland's one, so for me it will be a close match, China is confident but Maguire has got tremendous potential and Higgins is just the greatest tactical player ever, so for me Scotland come through.

Belgium (6) India

This match for me is all the way going to Belgium, India (Ronnie's pick for the title) struggled to pass the less-strong group in my opinion and Belgium is one of the three last unbeaten team (along Wales and China A) coming through arguably the strongest group, so for me Belgium advances to Semi-Final's stage.

China B (6) Australia

This match is the biggest mystery for me, Australia didn't start well but Neil is playing his usual great Snooker and Vinnie is improving as the week goes on, maybe he's coping with the situation now, but it's tough to say they will beat China B because the team composed by two teenagers came easily in the Top of the group that most describes as the toughest one, they had only one loss, in the decider facing England, who by the way had 4 wins and yet couldn't qualify. It's the first time I do that in my life but I won't pick a winner for this match, it's gonna be occasional and I hope to see a great match here.

Wales (6) Thailand

Well, Thailand had an emotional qualification which came in the last frame of the last Round, they were in a very tough Group but either did Wales who reach here unbeaten yet, in particular I watched most of their matches and they are really playing great Snooker, so I believe Wales can put an end to Thailand's heroine run.

Check Times 

Obviously, at the standard of the event so far, at this stage every match will be great and whatever winner team will have merits, but you can't say surprises won't hit you, my Final prediction should be Wales versus Scotland, with Wales winning, different from the Previews's post where I expected Scotland to go all the way.

Time is much precious for me when Snooker is on, and specially at Chinese events, because the time I have to write here in the Blog is simultaneous to the time the event is on, I would like to come back here with a Sunday's Semi-Final/Final preview but I'm not sure if I will be able to, anyway I give you all immediate updates of everything on our Facebook Page, be sure you like it not to miss on anything.