What does future holds for Brecel?

Brecel will celebrate his 21st birthday next month

Last week 20 year-old Luca Brecel beat the likes of Kurt Maflin and Kyren Wilson in the way to the German Masters Final to become the first player from Belgium to reach a Major Ranking Event Final, and only second from Mainland Europe to do so. Unfortunately he lost 9-5 to Martin Gould in the Final.

This isn't the first time Luca has done something huge in the game, in 2012 at 17 he became the youngest player ever to play at the Crucible. And last year he made his big breakthrough reaching the Semi-Finals of the Welsh Open.
Obviously from 2012 when he appeared at the Crucible for the first (and so far the only) time to 2015 is a long time off the scene. Most of it because he didn't play many professional tournaments in that period.

I just wonder when he's going to have a chance of winning a major again, he's one of the most talented players I've seen but I think things only start to get going when you make that big breakthrough winning a Major tournament, like Judd Trump in 2011, Ding Junhui in 2005 and of course Ronnie O`Sullivan in 1993. Of course he's only 20 and nowadays we have players storming into the scene at their late 30's and early 40's. Just look at Joe Perry winning his first Ranking Event aged 40 and more remarkably Stuart Bingham winning his first World Championship at 38, 15 years after people said he was going to win it one day.
But Brecel surely doesn't want to wait all this time, winning the German Masters aged 20 would be a huge step forward for him and make things a lot easier, he certainly doesn't want to enter the club of players who got close and never won it, like Ryan Day and Tony Drago for example. If he can keep playing as well as we know he can, it should be just a matter of time, and short time, but it's just so difficult to make that breakthrough nowadays with the standard being so high. In my opinion Luca must correct a couple of things on his cue action and stop trying to be something like a showman going for the toughest shots. He's entertaining and fantastic to watch and that's why I want to see him winning big things soon.

Gould has won several Minor Events and finally reached glory at the Main Stage

I also got to have a word about the German Masters, what a fantastic tournament it was once again, the atmosphere is an absolute buzz. Overall the standard wasn't quite good, highest break was only a 125 by Judd Trump, which is the lowest highest break of a tournament since 2000, and the Semi-Finals were pretty disappointing, most of it because of the aussence of O`Sullivan, Robertson and Higgins.
The Final was excellent anyway, and many congratulations to Martin Gould who wins his first Ranking Event aged 34, he's got still a few years ahead of him and hopefully the German Masters will be the first of many to come. He also gets back to the Top 16 and if he keeps in it for the rest of the season - what's very likely - he won't need to play 3 best-of-19 match in Ponds Forge to qualify for the Crucible this year.

All results from the 2016 German Masters here 

This week we'll have the China Open Qualifiers being played from Tuesday to Thursday and then the Shoot-Out from Friday to Sunday live on ITV. Then next week the players will keep busy, with the Welsh Open held from Monday to Sunday (21st February) live on BBC.
Ronnie O`Sullivan will need to make at least the Final of the Welsh Open to have a chance to qualify for the World Grand Prix (8-13 March), follow all the Snooker of the next two weeks at Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook.