2016/17 so far...

Sunday (October 30th) saw Mark Selby beat Ding Junhui 10-1 in the Final of the International Championship to claim the £125k top prize, which will guarantee him at the top of the World Ranking for many more months now - a position that he occupies uninterruptedly since February 2015, the longest consecutive period anyone has spent as World Number One since the Ranking started to work on a rolling system.

Anyway the International Championship always marks the start of the second half of the season, the most important half which sees the three Triple Crown events being played as well as the Welsh Open, the Champion of Champions, the World Grand Prix, the Players Championship, and this season, the Northern Irish Open, the Scottish Open and the Evergrande China Championship - apart from the latter one all them are televised on terrestrial channels.

It is then of course, the right time to find your best form and peak, obviously that doesn't mean what you've done in the first half of the season doesn't mean anything, they earn you money and ranking points and with the standard we've got nowadays any tournament win is a great achievement.

I will be reflecting here now about how's been the season of the big names and what we can expect of them in the important tournaments that are coming up:

Mark Selby: Selby has had a dream start to his season. After winning the World Championship in 2014 he had two difficult years in which he struggled to find his form, but the World Title in the end of last season - yet not playing his best back there at the Crucible - gave him the boost he needed to get back to his best.
He's by far the most consistent player on tour even when he's not at his best because he's very tough to beat and now that he's playing well and scoring heavily he seems unbeatable. This season he has already won two big titles: the Paul Hunter Classic and now the International Championship with that impressive win over Ding Junhui in the Final; he also made the Final of the Shanghai Masters and the Semi-Finals of the European Masters.
At this point you'd say Selby is favourite to win every tournament, and I'd be surprised if he doesn't win one or two of the Triple Crown events this year.

Neil Robertson: The Australian former World Champion and World Number One started this season unbelievably well as he always seems to do, winning the Riga Masters and making the Semi-Finals of the World Open, the first two events he played this season. But since then Robertson slowed down a bit, in four tournaments he played he lost once in Round 1, twice in the Last 32 and made only one Semi-Final, where he lost 0-6 to Ronnie O`Sullivan.
Robertson is always a big contender for every event he plays in, but he's looking a bit inconsistent now and he's got to improve as he looks to defend his Champion of Champions and his UK Championship titles in the upcoming weeks.

Judd Trump: It looks like Judd Trump is playing the best Snooker of his life. He's back to form, his safety game looks better and his shot selections seems to have improved. His results have been very good, he beat Ronnie O`Sullivan to win the European Masters and the week after he lost to Liang Wenbo in the English Open Final. He also made the Semi-Finals of the International Championship and Quarter-Finals of the Riga Masters.
He haven't played his best in every match, but he seems to be a better match player now and he wins a lot more games with his B game, he'll certainly be one to have an eye at this season.

Ding Junhui: Ding is another player that seems to have found the best Snooker of his career. The 29 year-old from China ended last season reaching the Final of the World Championship for the first time, and this season he has built from that and reached 3 Finals - losing the International Championship's to Selby but beating Selby himself in the Shanghai Masters' and Stuart Bingham in the 6Reds World Championship's.
It feels like psychologically Ding is much stronger now, and if his form is there (it looks like it is) he'll be the man to beat this season being such a great safety player, long potter and break builder.

Stuart Bingham: Bingham clearly struggled last season carrying the World Champion's mantle, but it is more than proved that the Englishmen currently sitting second at the World Ranking is back to near his best. He's yet to lose a 1st Round match this season and has made 1 Final (6Reds World Championship) out of 4 Semi-Finals (Shanghai Masters, English Open and International Championship) - fair to say the matches he lost he had very tough opposition and narrowly lost in the end at most of them.
It feels now like a matter of time until Bingham wins a tournament and a title under his belt is all he needs to get back to winning ways, don't get surprised if he clinches a Triple Crown event this year, his recent record in them has been pretty impressive.

Ronnie O`Sullivan: The Rocket have shown glimpses of his best this season, he made the Final of the European Masters which he lost in the decider to Judd Trump after trashing Neil Robertson 6-0 in the Semi-Final, what was one of his best ever performances. But apart from that O`Sullivan has failed to reach the Last 16 of another tournament and he's paying the price of poor Crucible results and 8 months out of the game in 2015 as he's in trouble of dropping out of the Top 16 - he needs to earn at the very least £30k until the end of the UK Championship to remain his Top 16 spot.
Anyway with so many tournaments to come you'd expect O`Sullivan to find form at some stage and guarantee his Top 16 spot before the World Championship - what's all he needs really because he's already guaranteed at the Masters for being reigning Champion. It's also good to remember that the Champion of Champions starting on Monday 7th have the format that - in my opinion - better suits him all season and considering he loves playing in Coventry and has never ever lost a match there it could be his come back to winning ways.

Kyren Wilson: After an incredible season that brought him from outside the Top 50 to the Top 16 in the World Ranking last year, Wilson looked to have maintained that form into this season when he reached the Final of the Indian Open. But the truth is that since then Wilson is struggling with his game, the Indian Open Final proved to be his last time beyond the Last 32 stage of a tournament until now and to highlight the diappearance of his good form there's a 1st Round defeat in Shanghai where he was aiming to defend his title.
It might have sank in for Wilson everything he has achieved in the past 14 months and he might have felt the increased expectations now, but having no Ranking points to defend from two seasons ago, Wilson is likely to get into the Top 10 this season and I still think we'll see some good Snooker from him this year.



The next tournament on the calendar will be the brand new Evergrande China Championship, which will give the winner a cheque of £200k - the biggest prize money ever to be given for a Snooker tournament outside the UK. The tournament invites 16 players (World's Top 10, plus Top 4 from a one-year list and 2 nominated by the CBSA) and will run from Tuesday (November 1st) to Saturday (November 5th). The event will see best-of-11-frames matches for the 1st Round (losers receive £15k) and the Quarter-Finals, with the Semi-Finals being best-of-17 and the Final best-of-19.
After that players will finally comeback to England to play the Champion of Champions (from Monday to Saturday, November 7th). Ronnie O`Sullivan was the only player to pull out of the rich Evergrande China Championship what could mean he's focusing on the Champion of Champions, and not to lose anything going on at these two events and the others coming up after them, make sure you follow Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil on Facebook!

Thanks for reading, and make sure you stay tuned on the Blog because we'll be coming back with a very exciting feature very soon (top secret) 😉