16.3.13

FIRST AMONG EQUALS

Among all the moans and groans this week – some of them from me – we must not overlook some significant personal bests.

Ben Woollaston and Kurt Maflin will today appear in the quarter-finals of a world ranking event for the first time. One of them is bound for the semis.

Woollaston played really well against Mark Williams before dodging a bit of a bullet against Joe Perry.

Maflin refused to be worn down by the methodical Rod Lawler, winning the last two frames to beat him 4-3.

These are two players who may do well under the new system next season when there isn’t so much qualifying to slog through. Maflin in particular looks settled in the arena and Woollaston has certainly improved in the last couple of years.

Even if he makes the final his Belarussian wife, Tatiana, will be unable to travel to Galway as she won’t be able to get a visa in time.

Good luck to Woollaston and Maflin: they've earned their places through hard work and results.

The two best performances of the day came in the first two matches. Ding Junhui began with two centuries and finished with a third in beating Anthony McGill 4-3.

I thought McGill was a little too hard on himself afterwards on Twitter – perhaps just the disappointment of losing. The clearance he made to win the sixth frame was superb but he had just a half chance in the decider.

Most would surely agree that Robertson is due another big title soon and he certainly played well enough in beating Barry Hawkins 4-1 yesterday to suggest that it could be this week.

Meanwhile, Ali Carter’s 4-1 defeat to Marco Fu proved how important the unexpected can be in sport.

Leading 1-0 and nicely in for 2-0, Carter feathered the cue ball when lining up a pink and everything went wrong for him after that.

He got really frustrated towards the end but snooker can be a really cruel game at times.

24 comments:

kildare cueman said...

In these roll on roll off events, why not put matches featuring the quickest players on first.

If the likes of Lawler and Burnett are left til last, at least people can see the matches they want at a reasonable time, and let the crawlers and walkers grind away into the wee hours.

Monique said...

The moans and groans have been about only one thing: how badly the matches have overrun, leading to a very late finish again yesterday. Those moans are justified and WSA is aware of it and I'm sure everything will be done to address it.
Because it should not overshadow the positives: Galway is a great place, with a youthful and friendly atmosphere. There is plenty to enjoy in addition to the snooker and it's important when trying to attract the "non local" people. Eurosport has done a great job in covering the event and it's another reason to address the timing issue because ES main "territory" is Europe and we ;-) are another hour - or two - ahead of UK.
The crowd in evenings was good, and warm as always in Ireland, with lots of young persons, yet another reason to avoid the very late finishes, especially on week days.
So there is more positives than negatives, by far.
And even the moans and groans in their own way are "positive": a problem can only be solved if it's talked about …
Now lets enjoy the snooker today. We have three relatively "unknown" players enjoying what must be one of their best run: Xiao, Maflin and Woollaston. They deserve the exposure. We have big names with proven value: Ding, Robertson, Allen … and Fu playing well again. We have three Chinese, a Northern Irish, an Australian, a Norwegian … what's not to like?
And having said all that I do hope that I will be in bed before 2 am today …

Anonymous said...

It's my little cousin's 9th birthday tomorrow, Dave. He's currently recuperating from a car accident in which he lost both his legs and will be watching the snooker on Eurosport. His name is Fellatio Sanchez, and it would be great if you could wish him well live on air during the final :)

Anonymous said...

Hi all

The stand out bet today is Ben Woollaston to beat Kurt Maflin this evening. After a comprehensive form study I make this Woollaston 8/11 - Maflin 11/8. Pinnacle bookmakers go a best 13/15 about Woollaston and I'd recommend a 5% stake of your betting bank.

'Cue Tip'

Anonymous said...

I welcome Monique's comments.

Eurosport you are doing are geat job this week.

Monique - you say WS are aware - just so I & other bloggers can understand, are you at the stadium and/or connected with WS - hope I'm not being cheeky in asking you :)

Anonymous said...

Dave if Ben Woolaston is a uk citizen then he is a european citizen therefore his wife can enter Ireland without a need for a passport.However she would need a document called "Residence card of a family member of a union citizen".aLSO IF his wife holds a Russian passport she can enter without a visa through the short stay visa waiver programme.Hope this helps somewhat.

Anonymous said...

why does ding only get 3000 for the 147 break today i thought the prize was 20000 as there hasnt been a 147 in a ranking tournament since higgins in shangai??is the ptc grand finals not a fully fledged ranking event yet world snooker claim ding only receives the ptc rolling prize for a maxi?

Monique said...

I'm here in Galway, taking pictures of the event.

JAMIE O'REILLY said...

Hi David. A great day's play, in today's quarter-Finals, in my view.

Ford did well, to beat Fu, 4-1.

The highlight of the day, was Ding .V. Allen. Ding made a superb 147 maximum break, in frame one, to lead, 1-0. Allen lead, 2-1. Ding did lead, 3-2. with a 138 break, on the way to this. Allen won frame six, with a 125 break. 3-3. Ding made a third century of the match, for him, number four, in the match, in total, a 108, to win, 4-3. Simply superb.

Robertson played well, to beat Xiao, 4-1.

Maflin did well, to lead Woollaston, 1-0, with a 99 break. He did lead, 2-0. He missed a black from it's spot, in frame three. This allowed Woollaston, to get back into it. He won frames three, and four, to leve, at 2-all. A good 89 break, fromMaflin, in frame five, gave him this frame, and a 3-2 lead. One up, with two to play. Maflin is first in, with a 62 break, in frame six. Woollaston replies with a break, in which his first colour potted, was a tough pink, of 38. Woollaston, then leaves Maflin snookered on the yellow. He successfully escapes, and, leaves it safe. Woollaston snooker's him again. After a while, maflin, in trying to escape from a snooker, leaves a free-ball. From there. Woollaston cleared up, from the yellow, upto and including the pink, to win the frame, andlevel the match. 3-3. Decider time. In the decider, Woollaston breaks off.Maflin, misses a long-red. Later, he pots a tough red, to a centre pocket, to gain the first chance, from this, he makes 6, unlucky, in spitting the pack, to land on nothing. Later, a safety battle develos, which Maflin, eventually wins. Woollaston, having played a bad safety shot. Maflin makes a very well taken, break of 66, to win the frame, and the match, by 4 frames to 3, to get to the Semi-Finals af a ranking event, for the first time, in his professional career. Play tonight, finishing, at just beforw midnight.

I can not wait for more. Thistime, in the semi-Finals, and the Final. All, played tomorrow.

Anonymous said...

So far all the talk is about how Barry Hearn increased the number of tournaments and prize money. But let's not forget, that's a positive for players and players only. In short term, Hearn's business skills seems working in that aspect but at the end, you have to invest in spectators. Because that's the only way to sustain the money and everything. In this era, with internet and so many TV channels, so many options to spend good time for modern day individual. Cue sports, by nature, have already a slight disadvantage being played indoors with very small crowd engagement and there is no flowing action like tennis or football. For example, if you don't put a shot clock on and don't favor quick and fast thinking players, snooker will be totally marginalized in the next decade and have tough time to get sponsors and eventually can not provide these very good prize funds comparing to other cue sports. And less and less children will take up this sport. The game is still new to continental Europe so these people are still hungry and there has been the "O'Sullivan" factor but i sense that even they are starting to lose interest a little bit.

Anonymous said...

5.41 - " there is no flowing action like tennis or football." - Does there have to be? I think not, there was some truly fantastic snooker matches played yesterday, esp the standard of the Ding/Allen match and also very entertaining the Woollaston/Maflin encounter. I've seen some very dreary non flowing football matches before and some very smash bang whallop maximum 3 rally tennis matches before.

"if you don't put a shot clock on and don't favor quick and fast thinking players, snooker will be totally marginalized in the next decade" - Golf has a slower tempo than snooker and it has thriving european, american and asian tours and the game survives very well without trying to make the player strike the golf ball in say 15 seconds.
The shot clock is a nice change from the norm very occasionally (Shoot-out and the Premier League)but the game would be ruined if every match had this time restriction and many of us, me included, would lose interest in the game.

Anonymous said...

Also 5.41 - You say there is no "flowing action" - there are pleny of fast flowing players such as Trump, Robertson, O'Sullivan, Allen, Bingham, Murphy to name a few that provide fast flowing action. Obviously in ALL SPORTS there are flare players/teams and more methodical ones.

There have been massive strides in snooker over the past 2-3 years with Barry as the chairman - number of events, prize money, tv coverage (also on ITV again) to name a few, but no sport is perfect, and yes there are always a few things that need to be ironed out i.e the scheduling of this PTC Finals event has been awful and I'm sure will this will be looked at for next year, but the game is in a healthy state and is improving.

kildare cueman said...

I think there will have to be a shot clock introduced eventually. Nothing like the PL clock, but maybe a minute or something like that.
Its not that everyone needs to play fast, but to stop those who deliberately stand looking as if they hope the position of the balls will change by staring at them. Then they go for a walk around the table. Then have another stare. Then get down, then get up. Then get down again and play the shot that was obvious from the beginning.

I sky plus all my snooker now so I can fast forward above scenario and also that tedious practise of replacing the balls after a miss.

Anonymous said...

12.46 - Golf is a unique sport. It's not really a people's sport, it's the sport of posh elites and kinda symbol of prestige and money. It's also very relaxing for the player, with no hurry and in the middle of the nature and so on. No wonder lots of snooker players also take up golf after earning decent amounts. You can say the same for equestrainism. They don't have no worries to win over new audiences. They will always be closely associated with big brands and famous names. We don't have this luxury in snooker. Besides,the shot clock is not going to be 10 seconds. 30 seconds with two time extension per frame would be reasonable. Usually players see the available shots in 10 to 15 secs. and all the lingering is just unnecessary really. Of course players esp. some players will get uncomfortable with a shot clock but this is for the good of the game and if the game gets globally big, players will benefit the most obviously. So they have to adapt.

Anonymous said...

The sh*t clock has been a ratings turn off. The Premier League figures are so bad Sky have dropped it. Figures were also down for the Shootout and Power Snooker has disappeared. Its a myth its popular. The opposite is actually true.

Anonymous said...

Kildare - "I think there will have to be a shot clock introduced eventually. Nothing like the PL clock, but maybe a minute or something like that "

Why would there need to be a shot clock in events outside the PL or Shhot-Out?? Late finishes this week has been because WSA have tried to cram to many matches on only 1 table during a single day, instead of perhaps better starting a day earlier (Mon) and not saving money and spreading the matches out more evenly to help avoid daft after midnight starts to matches. There is no reason to put a clock on any player unless the referee warns a player for taking a ridiculous amount of time (remember Alan Chamberlin warning Fergal O'Brien once about this). If it ain't broke don't fix it. The pace of play these days is fine and is considerably quicker than the average back in the 70's and 80's. Would love to see some average frame duration stats from each decade of all the matches played. Dave?

Anonymous said...

12.46 - 30 seconds with two time extension per frame would be reasonable. Of course players esp. some players will get uncomfortable with a shot clock but this is for the good of the game and if the game gets globally big, players will benefit the most obviously. So they have to adapt.

(Why are some of you asking for a shot clock?) The game is fine as it is. This week has nothing to do with players playing slower than usual. It's very poor scheduling...For players when given chances, it's not about how quick, it's about how many.

Anonymous said...

5.22 Is spot on...

Anonymous said...

5.45 - No the game is not fine as it is. If you really believe everything is ok, i'm sorry but you don't have the proper vision for the next ten to fifteen years. This is very crucial times for entertainment biz to check up itself. Sport, music, whatever you can think of. You can't give Rod Lawler to people and expect them to sit and watch for 4 -5 hours. Your product is simply not good enough to keep the viewer watching.

I don't mind that the matches overrun, that's not the actual problem. If the product is good enough, people won't mind staying up late. You can have perfect schedules, matches start at decent times and not coinciding with say a Champions League game but if you can't increase the excitement and make it a global trend, then people will not watch anyways. Not going to get into detail about marketing strategies but just look at Superbowl. It's so American and most people don't really now the rules or stuff but they can't help getting involved when it is on for some reason. And these reasons should be studied carefully.

Anonymous said...

Kildare cueman is an enemy of the game who needs to be exposed. He's a member of the 'we need instant gratification' brigade with absolutely no grasp of the intracies of the game or the psychological processes that are involved.
Thank God that Hearn hasn't gone down this horrendous dumbing-down process.

Anonymous said...

What is a shot clock?

JAMIE O'REILLY said...

Hi David. Play on 17-3-2013, was superb in my view.

Robertson Started well. Ford replied. Robertson did great, to win, 4-3.

Ding played great, to beat Maflin, 4-0.

The Robertson .V. Ding final, was a cracker. Robertson played great, to lead, 3-0. Ding replied. He played great, to reduce Robertson's lead, to 3-2. Ding potted a tough, and superb brown, which, he he missed it, would have cost him the match. He got it. 3-3. Inthe decider, Robertson misses a tough red. Ding cleared up, with a 98 break to win, by 4 frames to 3. Fantastic stuff.

Anonymous said...

7.23pm - Sorry you are wrong - The game itself is very healthy. Players as slow Rod Lawler with all respect are not the norm so you are wrong to highlight him. Every sport has their methodical players/teams and making the shot clock the norm would lose many many viewers. It's like making cricket only 20/20 and doing away with test cricket. You are in minority if you think the game itself is not fine...

Ron Florax said...

7.23 pm is totally wrong. The main problem was WS said the average PTC match lasts 2 hours, yet they scheduled 1,5. Shot clocks are not needed.