2019 English Open, 14th-20th October - Eurosport & Quest

Joe_ Public · 16-10-2019 4:08pm

Yuan Sijun strikes me as almost the prototype modern young player, excellent potter, brittle under pressure, no safety game. Hard to be confident how any of them turn out when you get all the hype.

Frank O. Pinion · 16-10-2019 10:53pm

Trump won his second round match 4-0, over Daniel Wells in 54 minutes. Another two seeds went out in round 2 (Bingham and Williams), leaving 11 seeds still in round 3. Seven Chinese players left. Thursdays are exciting during a Home Nations event, as two rounds are played in one day. The day starts with 32 players, but by the end of play, we'll have the 8 quarter-finalists.

Last 32, top half:

Si Jiahui v Zhou Yuelong
Tian Pengfei v Dominic Dale
Tom Ford v Kyren Wilson (#9)
Fan Zhengyi v Shaun Murphy (#8)
Neil Robertson (#5) v Zhao Xintong
David Gilbert (#12) v Kurt Maflin
Graeme Dott v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Ricky Walden v Michael Holt

Bottom half:

Ronnie O'Sullivan (#3) v Hossein Vafaei
Mei Xiwen v Elliot Slessor
Xiao Guodong v Jack Lisowski (#11)
Matthew Selt v Mark Selby (#6)
Mark Allen (#7) v Louis Heathcote
Barry Hawkins (#10) v Fergal O'Brien
Gary Wilson v Joe Perry (#15)
Lee Walker v Judd Trump (#2)

Going to be good week for one of Si Jiahui/Zhou Yuelong/Tian Pengfei/Dominic Dale, one will be (at least) a quarter-finalist and earn £10,000.

GeneralC · 17-10-2019 5:44am

Delighted for Murphy last night, he seems to be a nice bloke, enjoyed his post match interview on the couch and I totally agree with what he had to say about the younger generation of players being thought in these snooker academys and not being hungry enough to win.

Trump is playing very well as is Selby and Hawkins. Would like to see Dominic Dale progress and go further, seems a top bloke that's never really achieved anything in the game.

Frank O. Pinion · 17-10-2019 8:28am

GeneralC wrote: »

Would like to see Dominic Dale progress and go further, seems a top bloke that's never really achieved anything in the game.

One of the best players to never make it into the Top 16. The move to Vienna yeas ago hurt his game.

Today's TV matches:

10am
Mark Selby v Matthew Selt
Kyren Wilson v Tom Ford

1pm
Ronnie O'Sullivan v Hossein Vafaei
Mark Allen v Louis Heathcote

2:30pm (approx.)
Judd Trump v Lee Walker
Neil Robertson v Zhao Xintong

7pm (Round of 16)
TBD

The seeds look to be the heavy favourites in the TV matches today, but I'd like to see Xintong pull off the upset over Robertson.

GeneralC · 17-10-2019 9:02am

Frank O. Pinion wrote: »

One of the best players to never make it into the Top 16. The move to Vienna yeas ago hurt his game.

Today's TV matches:

10am
Mark Selby v Matthew Selt
Kyren Wilson v Tom Ford

1pm
Ronnie O'Sullivan v Hossein Vafaei
Mark Allen v Louis Heathcote

2:30pm (approx.)
Judd Trump v Lee Walker
Neil Robertson v Zhao Xintong

7pm (Round of 16)
TBD

The seeds look to the heavy favourites in the TV matches today, but I'd like to see Xintong pull off the upset over Robertson.

He moved there because of partner waa from Vienna?

Robertson is awful to watch, imo. Would love to see Chinese lad beat him today. Trump and Hawkins have yet to drop frames.

Enjoyable tournament so far I must say and coverage has been excellent. I really did miss the UK events over the last few months.

Joe_ Public · 17-10-2019 2:38pm

Jeepers some of the shots vafaei missed today! Safety was actually very good which surprised me but missing balls over the pocket, going nowhere with that. Ronnie just coasting in third gear.

waynescales1 · 17-10-2019 3:56pm

Phenomenal 135 from Trump there a few minutes ago, some of the pots were outstanding.

Pighead · 17-10-2019 4:58pm

Trump out! Beaten by world number 80 Lee Walker. Trump needed three snookers in the final frame and actually got them but Walker held his nerve and potted a tricky brown to get it done. Commentator said that Walker has earned just £23000 over the last twelve months. Think he's got about eight grand for reaching the last 16 here so that's a big win for him.

Joe_ Public · 17-10-2019 5:00pm

Didn't see it. Did walker bore him to death? Slowest player I've ever seen. But good luck to him all the same, big big win for him.

waynescales1 · 17-10-2019 5:01pm

Fouling the black and leaving a free ball, I'd say he was panicking at that stage. Deserved to win though, scored reasonably heavily and his safety game was solid. Won the tactical battles.

Pighead · 17-10-2019 5:04pm

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Didn't see it. Did walker bore him to death? Slowest player I've ever seen. But good luck to him all the same, big big win for him.

He was actually a bit more fluid today. Was pretty quick whilst in amongst the balls but yeah in general he's not easy to watch.

Frank O. Pinion · 17-10-2019 6:10pm

GeneralC wrote:

He moved there because of partner waa from Vienna?

Yes. I don't think he's still with her.

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Didn't see it. Did walker bore him to death? Slowest player I've ever seen. But good luck to him all the same, big big win for him.

Nope, he actually was much better than usual today, winning the first two frames without Trump potting a ball. Then Trump came back with two centuries to level the match. They say Walker is slower than Rod Lawler, but I find Lawler much worse to watch.

Xintong beat Robertson, 4-0, which was a great result. Robertson, of course, had an excuse blaming it on being on an outside table and not a TV table, because he's not Ronnie or the current World Champion. He always has an excuse.

This evening's TV matches:

7pm
Ronnie O'Sullivan v Mei Xiwen
Mark Selby v Xiao Guodong

8:30pm (approx.)
Mark Allen v Barry Hawkins
David Gilbert v Zhao Xintong

I'm also very interested in the result of the non-TV match, Si Jiahui/Tian Pengfei. Jiahui is only 17, just got on the tour this Summer, through the Q School Order of Merit, he didn't win any Q School event, and was relatively unknown before this week. I hope he continues to go forward, but he could have Murphy in the quarters.

Joe_ Public · 17-10-2019 8:47pm

Ronnie gone. Finally out of his misery. Lee Walker 2 hours in and still on frame 2 with Wilson. That's the Lee we know and love!!

Frank O. Pinion · 17-10-2019 9:42pm

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Ronnie gone. Finally out of his misery.

He'll be sticking around in Crawly and the "horrible" K2 arena to do punditry for Eurosport.

Tom Ford just made the second 147 of the season. He also made the first. 18 more, and he can pick up the £1,000,000 bonus by himself.

ArmaniJeanss · 17-10-2019 10:46pm

Joe_ Public wrote: »

Absolutely criminal with our history and tradition of snooker here that we dont have a ranking event. I lived through the glory days of the irish masters at goffs, i recall Steve Davis saying it was his second favourite venue on the circuit, it was a magnificent arena for snooker. We'll never get that back, but would be great so see something at least half as good. But not at citywest, horrible venue for snooker, hated every second of it.

Goffs wasn't ranking though. It's relatively easy to run a great event when you can cherry pick the 16 players in an invitational format. You may not have such great memories of it if it was chockful of Gary Wilson v Lee Walker games.

Frank O. Pinion · 17-10-2019 11:35pm

Friday's Quarter-Finals (best-of-9s)

Tian Pengfei (#68) v Tom Ford (#25) (7pm)
David Gilbert (#12) v Ricky Walden (#30) (12pm)
Mei Xiwen (#70) v Mark Selby (#5) (2pm approx.)
Mark Allen (#7) v Lee Walker (#80) (7pm)

Weird bunch. Only three Top 16 seeds left. Of the other five, only Ricky Walden has won a ranking event (3 ranking titles) and he hasn't been in a final in over three years.

Tom Ford has been in one ranking final (2016 PHC), which he lost to Mark Selby.

This ties Tian Pengfei's best result, as he makes a ranking event's QFs for the fourth time.

Mei Xiwen has never reached this stage of a tournament.

Lowest ranked of the bunch, Lee Walker made the QFs of the World Championship...in 1997! He didn't do much professionally between then, and making the semi-finals of the 2018 Gibraltar Open, a little over 18 months ago.

Don't know who I want to win really, at this stage I'd usually root for one of the underdogs, if a good few of the top players have gone out. But...I'm not a huge fan of any of them, so I guess I hope David Gilbert picks up the win and his first ranking title.

Joe_ Public · 17-10-2019 11:39pm

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Goffs wasn't ranking though. It's relatively easy to run a great event when you can cherry pick the 16 players in an invitational format. You may not have such great memories of it if it was chockful of Gary Wilson v Lee Walker games.

Of course, that's why I said we'll never get a goffs again because it couldn't cater for a ranking event. You could if it was maybe a tour championship finals or something but that would need money and clout which we don't have unfortunately. I don't think any venue should be catering for 128 players though, just far too unwieldy and leads to potential problems. Still haven't forgotten "the toilet" from the UK champs a few years back!

Arthur Daley · 18-10-2019 12:32am

B&H Irish masters used to only invite 12 so even more exclusive than the top 16 at the Wembley event. It had an important slot in the calendar too being a couple of weeks before Sheffield where the likes of Davis would be sharpening up before the big one.

waynescales1 · 18-10-2019 6:12pm

Enjoying this Xiwen v Selby match. Xiwen went 3-0 infront, played well. Back to 3-2 now. Selby couldn't pot a ball for 3 frames, now Xiwen is struggling.

waynescales1 · 19-10-2019 1:38pm

Selby v Allen. Head to head is 4-5 and 7 of their 9 contests have gone to the final frame. Should be a good match.

ArmaniJeanss · 19-10-2019 7:38pm

waynescales1 wrote: »

Selby v Allen. Head to head is 4-5 and 7 of their 9 contests have gone to the final frame. Should be a good match.

Good call. Selby won in the deciding frame.

waynescales1 · 19-10-2019 7:54pm

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Good call. Selby won in the deciding frame.

Yeah could have gone either way. Can’t believe Allen refused the pink to win the match at 5-3.

Frank O. Pinion · 19-10-2019 11:03pm

Some long frames in that Selby/Allen match, one being around 67 minutes. Selby gets into his first final in over a year. I hope David Gilbert can finally win a ranking title tomorrow. He'll also overtake Selby on the 1 year ranking list, if he does.

The winner of Selby/Gilbert will also get into the Champion of Champions next month, as neither had yet qualified. Jimmy White has one more event (World Open) to hope for a repeat winner, so he gets a place in the Champion of Champions.

Frank O. Pinion · 20-10-2019 4:27pm

7-1 to Mark Selby after the first session...might be an early night.

Arthur Daley · 20-10-2019 4:46pm

Been kept off quest until this evening. Usually quest showed the semis and finals in full.

Frank O. Pinion · 20-10-2019 5:06pm

Arthur Daley wrote: »

Been kept off quest until this evening. Usually quest showed the semis and finals in full.

Yeah, they usually do. That was quite frustrating as I went to watch the Quest recording around 1:30pm, but had to use the Eurosport app instead.

With the scoreline, Quest might only get to show 2 frames of the finale live.

waynescales1 · 20-10-2019 7:24pm

Selby flukes a snooker for 8-1.

Arthur Daley · 20-10-2019 7:26pm

It was rough for Gilbert. Wanted to see him make a match of it. As hardly got to catch the snooker this week.

2019 English Open, 14th-20th October - Eurosport & Quest

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