This year’s German Masters has been full of shocks and surprises and as a result for the first time in years we have a semi-final line up for a full ranking event which doesn’t feature a single member of the top 16.
Friday was another day where the big names came and went almost without trace as this tournament began to open right up. Out went the world champion Stuart Bingham and other established stars such as Stephen Maguire and Judd Trump to leave us with our final four.
The first semi-final sees Graeme Dott taking on Martin Gould in a fairly even looking match in terms of the current world rankings. Going into this week Dott was ranked 24 and Gould 20.
Their head to head is nothing like as close though with Gould trailing 4-1 and while he is probably more established now I’m not so sure that record is false because Dott has made a history of going well against potters because his safety game is so solid and when he’s left among the balls he is actually an underrated scorer.
There will be times where Gould just pots everything against Dott and this could be one of those. He will be full of confidence after beating Judd Trump in the quarter final but that isn’t always a good thing. He has to back up the big win the next day and we’ve seen countless examples recently of why that isn’t an easy thing to do.
This is a really interesting semi-final not least because both will feel they are good enough to be winning tournaments and both aren’t stupid, they will know they have a great chance this week.
I think there will be a lot of pressure around in this match and historically Dott has been the best at dealing with that. At odds against I think he’s a bit of value. He’ll enjoy being the underdog and can take advantage of the tag.
Followers of my pre-tournament bets will have their eyes on the second semi-final as one of my outright punts, Kyren Wilson, has made it into the last four where he takes on the Belgian rising star Luca Brecel.
At the beginning of the season this would have looked a fairly even match. At the start of the season neither had fulfilled their potential and neither had made a major final. Not only has Wilson done that now but he has won a major title having scooped the pot in Shanghai and that can be a significant advantage here.
Wilson has certainly reached this semi-final the hard way. He has come from 4-1 down in the first round and 4-2 in the quarter final and in all has won all of his matches 5-4 so you could say he is battle hardened and he certainly has lots of bottle.
Brecel has looked good in this tournament. When given the chance he has scored well but he has hung in there when his opponent has played well too. He has never made a major final and in his only previous major semi-final he was beaten 6-4 by John Higgins.
If experience is key then Wilson should be a good thing here but from the outright bet I’m effectively on him at 20/1 to come through this semi-final so I don’t need to get involved again. I’ll sit tight and hope the Englishman can land the place money on Saturday night.
Back G.Dott to beat M.Gould for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfred
