China Open 2010: Williams fightback sets up Ding showdown

At the start of the week I tipped a Ding Junhui v Mark Williams final and that is what we shall have tomorrow as they defeated Mark Allen and Ali Carter respectively today to set up what promises to be a closely fought finale…

Results from Global Snooker:

Allister Carter 4 - 6 Mark Williams
68(53)-34, 75-58, 47-63, 68(58)-0, 45-71, 9-67(65), 0-73(62), 69-5, 23-71(59), 0-68(68)

Mark Allen 2 - 6 Ding Junhui
0-127(67,60), 53-64, 0-137(137), 89(67)-23, 12-68, 9-72, 65-58, 7-125(125)

I did not see too much of the first semi-final between Mark Allen and Ding Junhui but it was clear that for whatever reason Mark was not at his best today as Ding was able to maintain the heavy scoring that he has produced all week so far. It was always going to be a tough ask for Mark to defeat Ding in front of his home crowd, despite having done so nine months ago in the Jiangsu Classic final, though having earned 4480 ranking points this week I am sure he will be relatively happy nonetheless.

Mark Williams’ path to the final was far less straightforward however as he played poorly during the first half of the match and fell 3-1 behind at the mid-session interval against provisional world number three Ali Carter. The crucial frame proved to be the fourth though as they stood locked at 40-40 with two reds remaining and with all of the colours except the black off their spots. Eventually Mark managed to get in to get himself back into the match at 2-3 and from there began to look much more like he had done in his quarter-final yesterday, winning four of the next five frames to book his final place.

So how will the final unfold? It is a tough one to call, but I think that Ding has to be the favourite, both on current form and due to the fact that he is playing in front of his home crowd. Also he has recent experience of having defeated Williams with his 6-1 victory at the Grand Prix earlier this season and has the all-important winning habit having won the UK Championship while Mark has not lifted major silverware since this event back in 2006.

But you can never rule out the Welshman and despite his struggles over the past few years, at his best he remains one of the elite players in the game for me and he knows how to get over the line and win finals. Over the past year or so he has been gradually improving and perhaps this will prove to be the culmination of all those hours of practice for the 2006 champion.

The concern that I would have for Mark however is that based on his comments posted on the World Snooker website this afternoon following his semi-final in which he explains that he has not adjusted his sleeping pattern from the UK timezone, having been scheduled to play in the evening session of all of his matches so far. Mark has never been a fan of the morning sessions at the best of times and he will have to be on his game from the start tomorrow…

Who is your money on?