Eventful Champion of Champions kickstarts the business season!

Ronnie was crowned Champion of Champions for the third time

Last week in Coventry saw another edition of the Champion of Champions, an event that has quickly become one of the fan's favourites. Put together the TV coverage, the nice arena it's played at, the crowd and the viewing figures, the level of play and it's unique format, I can easily say it's one of the tour's biggest 5 events - along with the Triple Crowns and the Welsh Open.
And being the first of these "main five" events that happens in the season, just a couple weeks before the UK Championship, the top players will have prepared and be expecting to hit peak form from now on.

And it was indeed, the best ever edition of this 6 year-old event. Viewing figures of way up 1,000,000 fans saw the first ever maximum of the Champion of Champions - from Selby in the group stages. And even though the three-times World Champion is yet to find his best form again, the five-times World Champion Ronnie O`Sullivan delighted the fans in his group final as he beat John Higgins 6-3 with four centuries, a season best performance to date.

The event, however, started with a bit of uncertainty because World Snooker had announced that a different table should be used for it, of the brand Rasson. I personally didn't approve it much at first, because Star is supposed to be World Snooker's official table provider, and that's what players will have at their facilities.
Once the cloth was the same, the table should, in theory, make no difference. But if you play Snooker you know that every bit makes a difference, and the cushions can make all the difference in terms of speed and how hard the pockets will play, as well as the angles and pocket falls.
But the truth is that tables have changed before in the past, and we've got to say well done when something's done right (like everything seems to have been last week). The Rasson table played lovely, the feedback was incredibly positive and it might've been a door opening for a future of Rasson tables on the tour or a wider variety of tables on the scene.
Ronnie said the pockets were a bit generous, but then we usually have this statements with the Star tables, maybe the players are getting too good!

Back to the action, final of Group 3 gave us a very interesting contest. Kyren Wilson would take on Judd Trump, but as highly rated as Trump may be, something unusual happened when not just me, but most people made Wilson favourite for the match. And making justice to that, Wilson beat Trump smoothly, 6-1.
Trump of course, would not have taken that very well, and this week after a win at the Northern Ireland Open, he said "[Kyren Wilson] is nearly my age and he's won nowhere near what I've won. I think with his personality and mine it kind of clashes a little bit. People are kind of in the future looking for rivals and I think it'll probably gonna be that". Then, when Eurosport's Andy Goldstein asked for him to comment on Kyren saying he wanted it more than Judd and pointing out that on the interval of their match Kyren was on the practice table, Trump replied: "with his cue action he probably needs a little bit more practice than me".
Well, it's not the first time that I'll say Judd - and most fans and media - think he's better than he actually is. He's got a point here though, he's 29 and Wilson is 26, and he has in fact won more than Wilson - and had done so even when he was 26 himself.
But Wilson coming into a match against him as favourite and wining it as comfortably as he did, rings a bell. I'm not saying there's something to worry about Trump, he has improved a lot, mainly in the safety department. His shot selection still lets him down sometimes but he's got plenty of bottle and does well under pressure. But Wilson is right now a better player. He's got all the shots, he knows when to play what, he controls the cue-ball better and he hits his opponents heavier when he has the chances.
Wilson is already a top player, he's only 26 and this year he's already had three matches that could've put him up to a higher degree (the Masters final, the Worlds semifinal and the Champion of Champions final). He didn't quite got there in the end, but he's giving himself every chance. In the other hand being fair to Trump, he already is at that degree above, though.
He stormed into the scene earlier and much quicker than Wilson. In his breakthrough year in 2011 he made the World Final and won the UK Championship, and the following year saw him spending a few weeks at the top of the World Rankings. But can a good two years separate Trump from Wilson?
It definitely does right now, but Trump's completing 7 years since he won his only Triple Crown event, and ever since both of them reached the same number of finals: 1 (Kyren's being this year and Judd's being four years ago).
Conclusion is that even though Trump is right now "bigger" than Wilson, it'll only take Wilson a Triple Crown win to put that right, and who do you think is close to a Triple Crown win right now?

In the meantime, O`Sullivan survived a late scare against Kyren in the final - lucky playing by his side as he played a giving-up shot when trailing by 8-9 and left Wilson snookered - and won his third Champion of Champions final. At the best form of his life, O`Sullivan's got people talking about him mainly because of SightRight. The credits for two big titles and a 147 this season were easily taken by the SightRight team, even though Ronnie himself prefers to wait a bit more before saying how much it really helps him.
There's no doubt he thinks it works for him, and other players think it has worked for them. As far as it concerns Mark Williams on twitter, it's like Ronnie's gone from water to wine after he joined SightRight.
I personally think it's too ealry to call. Ronnie's been like this for a while, last season he won 5 titles and also made a 147, so he's not done anything yet that he couldn't without SightRight. In recent years, he's only been unsuccessful at the Crucible and his hunger to win there is probably the reason he tried SightRight in the first place. So it's better we wait the season to end and Ronnie to speak on behalf of himself.

This is it from me now. I wish you all a very good UK Championship ahead.
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