We’ve reached the last match of the German Masters and for one of the two participants in Sunday’s final it will have been a career defining week as either Martin Gould or Luca Brecel will win their first ever major ranking title.
Martin Gould has appeared in a major final before. He was in the final of the Australian Open earlier in the season where he went down to John Higgins in a deciding frame. Luca Brecel is in unchartered territory now. This is his first major final.
Gould has looked very good this week. He had to dice with death a couple of times in coming through deciding frames against Mark Williams and Judd Trump but his semi-final win although nervy at times was as emphatic as the 6-2 scoreline and he is a rightful favourite for this final.
Luca Brecel, save for one deciding frame against Mark Joyce in the quarter final, has largely cruised into this final without playing well even by his own admission. We’ve not really seen the heavy scoring that the Belgian is famous for so it is credit to him that he has delivered in scrappy frames to make it through here.
We have to make the point that Kyren Wilson was not at the races in his semi-final with Brecel much to the annoyance of those of us who were on him outright from the start and Brecel did look shaky at times in that match. Whether Wilson dragged him down or not we’ll probably only know here but the Belgian will need to be a lot better than he was in that match to win this.
Finals are often different beasts. Firstly we’re up to the best of 17 frames and playing over two sessions and secondly the pressure it at its most intense but Gould has been a ranking event winner in waiting for a while and I think that wait ends in this match.
Gould has scored the better of the two this week and he is sensible enough to know when the boat can be pushed out and when it can’t. Generally you rarely get more than one chance a frame against Gould and Brecel has needed more than that throughout the tournament.
I fancy Gould to be the more settled of the two and while he might get nervous if it is close come the finish line I do think he will ultimately get over it and claim a long awaited first major title.
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