Snooker World Open contenders
The World Open starts this weekend, and there are a number of players who stand a great chance of winning the event.
The usual suspects will be competing for the £100,000 top-prize and the favourite, as he is heading into every tournament, is Ronnie O’Sullivan.
The Rocket missed the first ranking tournament of the season at the Shanghai Masters for personal reasons and was unable to defend his crown. He will be playing Mark King in the first round. Last season was one to forget for O’Sullivan, as he only won one ranking event, and by his standards, he should have done better. He lost in the Masters final to Mark Selby at Wembley after throwing away a 9-6 lead, and suffered at the hands of Selby once again in the quarter-finals of the world championship.
Two semi-final appearances at the UK Championship and Welsh Open were the best he could manage in ranking events other than his Shanghai win, and on both occasions he lost to John Higgins. Another defeat in a final, this time in the Premier League - where he was champion for five consecutive years - to Shaun Murphy came along as well.
O’Sullivan at times can be his own worst enemy, but if he is in the right frame of mind, then he will definitely be the one to beat. This season he has played twice in the Premier League, and has failed to win in both of them, drawing with Marco Fu and Ding Junhui.
Selby won the Masters for the second time in three years in last season, and he begins his campaign against Barry Hawkins. He has made a solid start to this season, winning a six-red tournament in Thailand and one of the new Players Tour Championship events as well. The Jester from Leicester is capable of going all the way to add to the Welsh Open -the only ranking event title of his career so far.
Reigning world champion Neil Robertson is certainly another contender for the World Open. The Australian began and ended last season with event wins - winning the Grand Prix at the start and becoming world champion at the end at the Crucible. The quick-fire format of the World Open - where matches are the first to three up until the final - will suit Robertson’s game. As world champion as well, he’ll have a lot to prove, and over the last few seasons he has become one of the more flamboyant players on the table.
Another contender is the in-form Ali Carter. He won the first ranking event of the season last week in Shanghai after beating Jamie Burnett in the final. Carter has been one of the most consistent players on the circuit over the last two seasons, which has seen him rise to No.2 in the world rankings.
Shaun Murphy is the reigning Premier League champion, and as that prestigious tournament is built on playing against the 25-second shot-clock, he should have no problems adapting to the best-of-five encounters here in Scotland.
A man who returned to form last season was Mark Williams, and last night he showed his true quality in the Premier League by coming back from 2-0 down to win 4-2. He won the China Open last season to end a run of four years without a ranking event win, and signs of the old Williams have been coming back. The Welshman is a dangerous opponent for anybody, and he could go far in this event.
With a tournament in Scotland, all eyes will be on a Scotsman winning the World Open at the end of the week. Stephen Maguire has won four ranking events in his career, but the last of them came in 2008 in China. At times he doesn’t play well, and this is his downfall, as he is not able to win the scrappy frames. Of the Scottish players – which also include Stephen Hendry, Graeme Dott, Alan McManus, Marcus Campbell and Jamie McBain - he is the most likely to reach the latter stages.
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