The commentators mentioned that Bingtao is on his own this week, obviously no other Chinese players, but apparently there is noone else either normally the Chinese players travel with an entourage from the academy lol but guessing they have all stayed behind, Bingtao has apparently been seen at the restaurant and practice on his own.
I wonder if he is enjoying the freedom, its probably the only time he has had to himself since he has been over here, these academys are good but from what I can gather they eat together, practice together, travel together, some even live together and they probably never get time to themselves
The side note to this is Bingtao is now guaranteed to be 16th in the rankings possibly higher I havent done the maths, but minimum 16th with just Gibraltar to go before World Championship Qualifying
Gibraltar is now under threat, players where told today that its going to be monitored the next few days and a decision made.
If Gibraltar doesnt go ahead then Bingtao WILL be seeded for the World Championships
At 1-1 this looked like it was going to be a tight final not like the couple of runaway ones there have been recently, then Trump stormed away and and took a 6-1 lead, Bingtao managed to take the final frame of the session, to give him the faintest of hopes going into tonight
Championship league group 7 and winners group next 4 days but as usual with the Championship league I wont be updating as its short format and to much to keep on top off lol.
So a week off for me and I will hopefully return as long as there are no more Coronavirus issues next week when the Gibraltar Open hopefully goes ahead
Draw for Gibraltar Open is out and ROS did not enter.
Which means not including the 20 minutes of snooker he played at The Shootout, his last proper Snooker match was 14th February his next will be over 2 months later at the World Championships, no chance of tiredness or fatigue, if he is ever going to win another World Championship it will be this year(Personally still dont think he will)
Trump and Robertson are both in Gibraltar obviously, both players had an agreement to miss The Shootout and play in Gibraltar(they are 1 and 2 on the BetVictor European Series List, Robertson just needs to get to the final, Trump would have to win the even for the £150,000 bonus)
Havent quite worked out how I will be doing the updates yet for this next week, but probably wont be doing the opening 2 rounds as it starts with 245 players lol including alot of amateurs and with the event done over 4 days its very short format as well(best of 7s all the way)
No chance of tiredness but he won't be match sharp either. I don't know, but he looks almost like he is going to pack it in soon.
I get the match sharpness but I think back to when he had a year off a come back to win the World Championships in 2013, as I said I dont think he will, and I said a few year ago he wont win another world title, 17 days is to much for him.
But if he was ever gonna win another one its gonna be this year when he doesnt have the Players Championship and Tour Championship beforehand
I know I said I wasnt going to update The Championship League but what a crazy final group.
Neil Robertson went into today top with 3 wins from 3, Trump also had 3 wins from 3.
Robertson lost his opening 2 matches today and had to beat Scott Donaldson to qualify for the Semi Finals of the Winners Group, But Scott Donaldson won 3-1 and qualified instead.
Trump had won all 6 of his group matches and finished top of the group, so the Semi Final was
Trump v Donaldson McGill v Dott
Donaldson beat Trump 3-1 Dott beat McGill 3-2
This is Scott Donaldson first ever time in The Championship League and he is now in the final of the Winners Group
Obviously not a ranking title but will mean alot to Scott as its his first Title as a pro player and it books his place at The Champion of Champions as well, currently ranked 24th he is really starting to show something
I think I said before he was the one I felt was more likely to break into the top 16, seems to be getting better results every year and more than capable of beating the big guns.
Re: Ronnie, I agree with Paulie, although most people are better when they go into it with a bit of match sharpness, last time Ronnie won he played like 3 events and came in pretty much cold. Probably his best chance left, you never know but it is looking unlikely I would love him to win just one more but so many people have been at the top of their game this year: Trump, Robbo, Murphy, Magure and I think he has lost the fear factor. He does have it in him, but over 2 and a half weeks its going to be tough, we can dream? although hopefully he doesn't go out first round to a qualifier this year lol
So Gibraltar Open starts tomorrow with the qualifiers as I said I wont wont be doing updates on the Qualifiers as there are over 240 players lol
Only 100 fans are being let in for the main event the players were told today in a letter due to Coronavirus
Ali Carter has been advised by his doctors to pull out due to his weaker immune system his is more at risk should he contract the virus, so Jamie O'Neil will get a Bye
Neil Robertson Stephen Maguire Graeme Dott Dave Gilbert
Have also pulled out of Gibraltar
Neil Robertson pulling out means if Trump wins he will win the £150,000 Betvictor Series Bonus
Maguire and Dott pulling out means neither of those will make the Tour Championships and its likely Higgins will take the last spot unless Un-Nooh,Perry, Wilson or Williams win the event
Carter pulling out means he will have to qualify for the World Championships as he wont be in the top 16 by the cut of period
So not a decision any of those players would have taken lightly
Sorry for lack of updates but there wont be any until Sunday, will update any big casulties but its so hard to update round by roubd, you have one round starting before another has finished
For instance Bingham and Woollaston are playing there 3rd round match whilst Williams and Zhou Yuelong are playing there 2nd round match lol its so complicated haha
Comments
Semi Final
Yan Bingtao 6-1 Shaun Murphy
Well I didn't see that coming, a few mistakes by Murphy but a solid performance from Bingtao
Final
Judd Trump v Yan Bingtao
I wonder if he is enjoying the freedom, its probably the only time he has had to himself since he has been over here, these academys are good but from what I can gather they eat together, practice together, travel together, some even live together and they probably never get time to themselves
Gibraltar is now under threat, players where told today that its going to be monitored the next few days and a decision made.
If Gibraltar doesnt go ahead then Bingtao WILL be seeded for the World Championships
Final
End of 1ss session
Judd Trump 6-2 Yan Bingtao
At 1-1 this looked like it was going to be a tight final not like the couple of runaway ones there have been recently, then Trump stormed away and and took a 6-1 lead, Bingtao managed to take the final frame of the session, to give him the faintest of hopes going into tonight
Final
Judd Trump 10-4 Yan Bingtao
Yan came out and won the opening 2 frames of the evening to make it 6-4 but Trump won the next 4
Stephen Hendry 1990-1991
Ding Junhui 2013-2014
Mark Selby 2016-2017
Ronnie O'Sullivan 2017-2018
In winning 5 ranking events in one season, however there are still 3 ranking events left so he can overtake those and get the record in his own right
So a week off for me and I will hopefully return as long as there are no more Coronavirus issues next week when the Gibraltar Open hopefully goes ahead
Trumps and Ronnies both in 12
Selby was in 15 and Ding in 17 I think
Which means not including the 20 minutes of snooker he played at The Shootout, his last proper Snooker match was 14th February his next will be over 2 months later at the World Championships, no chance of tiredness or fatigue, if he is ever going to win another World Championship it will be this year(Personally still dont think he will)
Trump and Robertson are both in Gibraltar obviously, both players had an agreement to miss The Shootout and play in Gibraltar(they are 1 and 2 on the BetVictor European Series List, Robertson just needs to get to the final, Trump would have to win the even for the £150,000 bonus)
Havent quite worked out how I will be doing the updates yet for this next week, but probably wont be doing the opening 2 rounds as it starts with 245 players lol including alot of amateurs and with the event done over 4 days its very short format as well(best of 7s all the way)
But if he was ever gonna win another one its gonna be this year when he doesnt have the Players Championship and Tour Championship beforehand
Neil Robertson went into today top with 3 wins from 3, Trump also had 3 wins from 3.
Robertson lost his opening 2 matches today and had to beat Scott Donaldson to qualify for the Semi Finals of the Winners Group, But Scott Donaldson won 3-1 and qualified instead.
Trump had won all 6 of his group matches and finished top of the group, so the Semi Final was
Trump v Donaldson
McGill v Dott
Donaldson beat Trump 3-1
Dott beat McGill 3-2
This is Scott Donaldson first ever time in The Championship League and he is now in the final of the Winners Group
I think I said before he was the one I felt was more likely to break into the top 16, seems to be getting better results every year and more than capable of beating the big guns.
Re: Ronnie, I agree with Paulie, although most people are better when they go into it with a bit of match sharpness, last time Ronnie won he played like 3 events and came in pretty much cold. Probably his best chance left, you never know but it is looking unlikely
I would love him to win just one more but so many people have been at the top of their game this year: Trump, Robbo, Murphy, Magure and I think he has lost the fear factor. He does have it in him, but over 2 and a half weeks its going to be tough, we can dream? although hopefully he doesn't go out first round to a qualifier this year lol
Only 100 fans are being let in for the main event the players were told today in a letter due to Coronavirus
Ali Carter has been advised by his doctors to pull out due to his weaker immune system his is more at risk should he contract the virus, so Jamie O'Neil will get a Bye
Stephen Maguire
Graeme Dott
Dave Gilbert
Have also pulled out of Gibraltar
Neil Robertson pulling out means if Trump wins he will win the £150,000 Betvictor Series Bonus
Maguire and Dott pulling out means neither of those will make the Tour Championships and its likely Higgins will take the last spot unless Un-Nooh,Perry, Wilson or Williams win the event
Carter pulling out means he will have to qualify for the World Championships as he wont be in the top 16 by the cut of period
So not a decision any of those players would have taken lightly
Ali Carter
Neil Robertson
Stephen Maguire
Graeme Dott
Dave Gilbert
Jimmy White
Fraser Patrick
Noppon Saengkham
Mike Dunn
John Higgins
Mark Allen
Still expecting some more that haven't been announced yet that just wont show that haven't travelled
So he pulled out of his match today
For instance Bingham and Woollaston are playing there 3rd round match whilst Williams and Zhou Yuelong are playing there 2nd round match lol its so complicated haha