Updated World Championship Draw (China Open Day 4)

Down to eight in Beijing, the main stories from today include comeback wins from both Mark Williams and Jack Lisowski to reach the quarter-finals, while five of the world’s top eight (provisionally), also ensured that there will be a high-quality line-up this weekend.

  • Click here to view the updated tournament drawsheet
  • Click here to view the latest projected seedings

While you can read reports on the day’s matches here and here at World Snooker, I am going to focus, as ever, upon the rankings implications and the impact upon the ever-changing provisional World Championship draw…

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Updated World Championship Draw (China Open Day 3)

Day three in Beijing saw a missed black from Mark Selby cost him a 147, while recent PTC Grand Finals winner Ding Junhui exited his home tournament with a 5-3 defeat to Barry Hawkins in the opening session.

  • Click here to view the updated tournament drawsheet
  • Click here to view the latest projected seedings

So what impact do today’s results have upon the provisional World Championship draw?

As it stands, the potential drawsheet for the Crucible now looks like this:

O’Sullivan (1) v Carter (16)
Bingham (9) v Higgins (8)

Allen (5) v Dott (12)
Stevens (13) v Robertson (4)

Selby (3) v Walden (14)
Williams (11) v Murphy (6)

Maguire (7) v Ding (10)
Hawkins (15) v Trump (2)

Compared to yesterday then, there have been a number of changes with Mark Allen moving up three places and therefore moving himself out of Ronnie O’Sullivan’s quarter, with Shaun Murphy, Stephen Maguire and John Higgins all changing places as a result.

Elsewhere, wins for Stuart Bingham and Mark Williams also saw them gain places today, as well as Ricky Walden, who moved above Barry Hawkins with victory against Ken Doherty.

Further down the seedings list, defeat for Liang Wenbo to Stuart Bingham was good news for Fergal O’Brien, who should now remain part of the world’s top 32 at the cut-off, while Jimmy Robertson’s loss to namesake Neil will mean that Anthony McGill will retain a top 48 seeding for Sheffield.

The action continues…

China Open 2013: Starts Monday

Monday sees the start of the 2013 China Open, the final tournament before next month’s all-important World Championship, as the seedings for Sheffield are finalised in Beijing.

Broadcast live on Eurosport as is the norm, the opening day sees the likes of Graeme Dott and Stephen Maguire begin their last 32 matches, while six of the qualifiers will have to battle it out against the local wildcards to make it through to the same stage.

All of the usual quicklinks can be found on the right-hand side, while you can read my preview of all of the outstanding ranking issues to be resolved this week here.

For what it’s worth, my tournament predictions are:

Semi-finals: Allen def Bingham, Trump def Walden

Final: Allen def Trump

Joyce Out Of China Open

Ahead of the start of the China Open this coming Monday, it has been announced that qualifier Mark Joyce will not be among those making the trip to Beijing, due to his partner being due to give birth.

Congratulations go to both Mark and his partner, while wildcard Lu Haotian will now receive a bye through to the last 32 and a clash with three-time China Open champion Mark Williams on Wednesday afternoon.

My full tournament preview will follow later today.

 

Closing In On The Cut: Crucible 2013 (Updated)

So this is it, just one more event to go before the seedings for the 2013 World Championship are finalised and following the PTC Grand Finals in Galway last week, the position is now somewhat clearer, though much can still change.

Click below for a summary of who has to do what in Beijing, as well as a preview of how the seeds would be placed in the Crucible draw, if it were to be made today…

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Closing In On The Cut: Crucible 2013

It feels like a long time since I last prepared one of these, but with the final mid-season seedings revision looming large, below I take a look at how the rankings are shaping up ahead of the Crucible, with just the PTC Grand Finals and China Open tournaments still to be played.

I also take a look at how the draw for the World Championship is shaping up…

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