The Masters - Is there space for everyone?

Sunday (January 14th) sees the start of the 2018 Masters. The Snooker tournament in London brings together the Top 16 players in the World - or the ones who were the best by the end of the UK Championship though.

Since the UK Championship changed in 2013, the Masters fastly became the second biggest tournament in the World, and this year World No 2 Ronnie O`Sullivan will try to complete a hat-trick wins for the first time.
The englishman already holds the record for more wins with 7, and he comes to Alexandra Palace this year having won 4 tournaments out of 6 finals in 2017 (his four wins include two of the three Triple Crown events).

However, as we look at the draw, things won't be easy for O`Sullivan.
In Round One he'll face Marco Fu, who made him work hard to win that epic semi-final last year. And then, as we go lower on the draw, we have Luca Brecel (reigning China Champion) taking on Mark Allen (International Championship runner-up this season); John Higgins plays Anthony McGill (repeat of this season's Indian Open final); Ding Junhui (winner of the World Cup and the World Open this season) meets Ryan Day (Riga Masters Champion); Judd Trump (European Masters winner) takes on Liang Wenbo (World Cup winner); Shaun Murphy (Champion of Champions winner and UK Championship runner-up) faces Ali Carter (silver in the World Games); Barry Hawkins (reigning World Grand Prix winner) takes on Kyren Wilson (Gold in the World Games); and least but never last World Champion and World No1 Mark Selby starts his run against Mark Williams (recent Northern Ireland Open winner).

All these players have been in Finals, and have done perfectly well in the last couple of years. However, there are a few noticeable absences that have to be talked about.
Firstly, last year's finalist Joe Perry. He obviously got close of missing out last year's championship and this time he never got close, but after contesting such a balanced final against Ronnie last year (which he might have won had he not missed that red when 4-1 up) people will certainly miss him.
Then we won't see Neil Robertson. The Australian, winner in 2012, is very popular and even more after winning the Scottish Open right after the UK Championship. That got him back to the Top 16 but it was out of time. I bet though, that when people look at the draw and see his name is not on it they'll wonder why he missed out once he's in the Top 16.
Recent World Champion Stuart Bingham will also be a face we won't see in The Masters this season as he was found guilty of betting on his own matches earlier in October.

We can't obviously blame the event for not having these three (among others) starts missing out. It's their own fault, for whether not playing well (they had two years to do something and rise in the rankings) or not behaving as they should, as in Bingham's case.
Even though I prefer the Champion of Champions draw, as that unites 16 players that have the winning instinct and the group phase filters that out even more, people definitely can't complain about the line-up this year - the fresh faces may even add something interesting to it.

Serious business start in a few days, and as always you can watch it on the BBC and follow all the news on Ronnie O`Sullivan Brasil's Facebook page.