Players to watch in 2012 Shanghai Masters snooker event – Part 2
Third important event of the 2012-13 Snooker Season was the 2012 Australian Goldfields Open snooker tournament. The 2012 edition of the contest was overall second episode of the Aussie major ranking event. The first edition was dominated by the Englishman
Stuart Bingham as he performed up to the mark to claim the title.
However, the Englishman failed to make it to the finals of the event and crashed out of the first round match. Meanwhile, the winner of the 2012 Snooker Shootout competition, England’s Barry Hawkins continued his tremendous form and cruised into the final
encounter of the tournament where he was up against the former World Snooker Championship winner and the winner of the 2012 China Open, Peter Ebdon and defeated him quite easily by the score line of 9-3.
Now, the potters are looking forward towards the third major ranking snooker tournament of the new season, the 2012 Shanghai Masters snooker event. Recently the qualifying session of the clash finished at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield featuring
16 qualifiers who will be challenging the Top 16 in the first round of the event. This year, the legendary cuemen, four-time World Snooker Championship winners John Higgins and Ronnie O’Sullivan might not take part in the event which makes it more opportunistic
for the youngsters and the potters who have never won a major ranking event.
Nevertheless, there are still legends like the World Number one and defending champion Mark Selby, former two-time World Snooker Championship winner Mark Williams, the 2012 Welsh Open winner Ding Junhui and the former World Snooker Champion Shaun Murphy
who can be a strong hurdle in their way so the new potters must pull up their socks.
Apart from all that, there have been some emerging cuemen who have shown promising performances from the start of the new season. The potters include the winner of the 2012 Wuxi Classic event, Ricky Walden, winner of the 2012 Six-Red World Championship Mark
Davis, winner of the first Asian Players Tour Championship (APTC) Stuart Bingham, winner of the first UKPTC event Stephen Maguire, winner of the 2012 Australian Goldfields Open and 2012 Snooker Shootout, Barry Hawkins and the former World Snooker Champion
and 2012 China Open winner Peter Ebdon.
All these potters have displayed tremendous snooker skills form the beginning of the season and are on the highway to become the leading players of the game. Their next stop is the 2012 Shanghai Masters snooker event where they will be facing new challengers.
The line-up of the 2012 Shanghai Masters snooker event has been finalised and all these cuemen seem ready to take on their opponents in the opening round clashes at the Shanghai Grand Stage in Shanghai, China.
The event is expected to bring fireworks at the arena along with countless snooker fans from around the world. China is becoming a major home for snooker gradually as it has shown great welcome to the game in the last couple of years and the Chinese arenas
are of international standards. The events that took place in China in the past two season received a lot of appreciation and support by the Chinese snooker fans which compelled the snooker governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association
(WPBSA) to introduce more snooker events in China so that the game could get more recognition in the world.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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