Neil Robertson and Shaun Murphy up against difficult opponents
With only three weeks left in the snooker Premier League group phase, the race is on to decide who will make it to the play-offs.
Reigning world champion Neil Robertson and current Premier League champion Shaun Murphy are both in action tomorrow night. Robertson takes on table-topper Marco Fu, while Murphy has a tough match against the Masters champion Mark Selby.
Robertson and Murphy are the only players to have played just three times and are playing catch-up to the rest of the field. Both players have one win, one draw and a defeat to their name so far. Murphy is bottom of the league, but don’t read too much into that, as he is only three points off top-spot having played two games less than Fu. Ronnie O’Sullivan moved off the foot of the table to third place with a win in his last match, showing how tight this year’s competition is.
Robertson handed out a 6-0 thumping to Ding Junhui in his last outing, but against Fu a score like that is highly unlikely. Fu is the tournament’s biggest surprise. Sitting pretty on top of the pile, he already has one foot in the semi-finals. A point would guarantee that place, and enable him to relax and watch the others fight it out for the final three play-off spots over the next fortnight.
Fu sent Ding packing last week, winning 5-1 and ending the UK champion’s hopes of reaching the last four. Prior to last week’s match, Fu was the only player not to have made a century break and collect the £1,000 bonus, but he changed that in the final frame by grabbing one to round off a fine evening.
Robertson began his Premier League campaign with a defeat, but since then he has shown why he is the world champion and world No.1. He battled hard to get a point against Mark Williams, and got his first win by beating Ding. If Robertson wants to book his place in the semi-finals, he would have to beat Fu, and then remain unbeaten against O’Sullivan and Murphy in his final two games.
Murphy has tricky games left as well. He plays the Jester from Leicester Selby, then Williams, and he finishes his round-robin phase against the world champion.
Selby has won two and lost two in his four games so far. He beat Robertson 4-2 and blew Fu away 5-1. He has made four centuries along the way, and is currently on four points. With Fu at the top of the table, the final three places are going to be contested by Selby, Robertson, Williams, Murphy and O’Sullivan, and neither player can afford to lose a game.
Murphy kicked off the defence of his title with an emphatic 5-1 win over Ding. It has been some time since Murphy played a game, and when he did, he was involved in a high-quality encounter against O’Sullivan in the 3-3 draw.
Prediction: Robertson 3 Fu 3, Murphy 2 Selby 4
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