IT'S CRUCIBLE EVE
This is one of my favourite dates of the year. Even not being in Sheffield this time, I love seeing all the pictures coming from Tudor Square and the prospect of 17 magical days of Crucible action ahead. You just can't wait for that opening session on 10am Saturday.
Here, I would like to have a look at the main headlines one day before the event begins:
Ronnie's comeback
Ronnie O'Sullivan announced yesterday that he'll be back in action for the first time since January to bid for a record eighth Crucible crown, what can we expect?
I don't think he will win it, because the last we saw from him was still good, but not able to win anything this season. It's not like 2013 when he was younger and even though he took a year out, he had left winning the World Championship in 2012 before successfully defending it on his return a year later.
However, some convictions we bring to the Crucible from what we see during the season can quickly be dismissed once the tournament starts. Last year, all four players that advanced to the semifinals hadn't had good seasons up until then. If O'Sullivan does turn up, in ten days time he might've played very well for five long sessions at the Crucible and be into the quarterfinals - if that happens, no matter what went on before in the season, he'll be right back amongst the red hot favourites for the title.
The Curse
There's no hiding from it. The Crucible Curse does exist and we're already talking about it. Can Kyren Wilson break it?
Honestly, I feel like we say "if anyone can it's him" about every first time winner. But Wilson has really helped his cause by winning four ranking titles this season, his confidence is going through the roof.
Again it's all about those first two rounds, the way he's playing, if he can survive the first ten days I think he's got to be made favourite.
Jackson Page £147k man
History has already been written in this year's championship. For the first time in history a player scored two Maximum 147 Breaks in one match. That player was Jackson Page, who had never made a maximum before in his career and earned a £147k bonus for the two breaks, a prize that can still go up if it's not equalled throughout the event.
Yet, after a magical round 3 the 23-year-old lost in the Judgement Day and has not made it to the Crucible. Afterwards he said he'd rather have qualified than making the two 147s. Even though his money is sorted for this event, I really like this attitude. A player of his talent and age must be at the Crucible every year - he's a potential champion in the future and the Crucible stages should be an unmissable experience for him every year.
Qualifying Class
I hate saying this, but to be brutally honest I think this is a "weaker" qualifying class than we had in recent years. Maybe it's because all the players we expect to be seeded have managed to stay inside the Top 16 this time, and the fact that Bingham, Maguire, Lisowski and McGill are amongst the qualifying casualties, but I think there's only two or three players from the qualifiers this year that the seeds were hoping to not get in the draw.
Don't get me wrong, I expect round one to be carnage as always, but I just think that in its majority, most unseeded players are what the seeds would expect in a last 32 stage of a tournament, and a couple of the qualifiers feel like a bullet dodged for a Crucible starter.
The Favourites
It's always a shot in the dark, but I won't sit on the fence (although it's not a bold prediction at all), I make Judd Trump favourite this year. I feel like he is the most consistent player on tour, he can win matches when not at his best now and he took the pressure of not winning Triple Crown events off a bit by winning the UK Championship in December.
Maybe it took him a few years since winning his first one in 2019 to finally be ready for a second world title, but I think he's ready now and I'll probably have him as favourite for the next few years to come.
Apart from Kyren Wilson (who I already wrote about above), John Higgins and Mark Selby got to be mentioned amongst the main contenders. Both have the game that seems built for the Crucible and are in great form at the moment. However, history tells us that success in the very last tournament before the World Championship usually means disappointment in Sheffield.
Enjoy the Championship!
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