It is quarter final day at the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters on Thursday with all four matches taking place over two more sessions of action in the Kingdom as the biggest event of the season so far reaches a really important stage.
We have just four top 16 players left in the draw and they all take on a player outside the top 16 so if any of the outsiders can cause another upset it would be worth £100,000 to them and a huge rise up the rankings so there is plenty at stake on Thursday.
Afternoon Session
Judd Trump vs Neil Robertson
The pick of the quarter finals is very much the one which will be on the main table between the Shanghai Masters champion Judd Trump and a Neil Robertson who is looking for two more wins to get him back into the top 16 in the world rankings.
Trump probably feels he is playing with the house money this week now having escaped from 4-0 down in a best of nine in his opening match against Wu Yize. He was much better against Jack Lisowski and you wonder if the field will regret the Chinese player letting Trump off the hook. Robertson has played well in this tournament though. He has seen off Mark Selby and Gary Wilson in the last two rounds and is knocking in centuries for fun again so you get the impression that his confidence is returning. If both these players play well then we should be in for a fair bit of fun here because these two usually deliver good matches but this might be the acid test of how well Robertson is going. I’m happy to take a watching brief on this one.
Shaun Murphy vs Xiao Guodong
The other quarter final sees the Shanghai Masters finalist Shaun Murphy looking to make it through to another semi-final on the season when he takes on the second lowest ranked player left in the draw in Xiao Guodong.
Murphy has come through a comfortable draw so far with the minimum of fuss and he’ll be hoping to do the same here. It will get tougher in the semi-final should he get there but he has to get there first and avoiding a slip up here will be important. Guodong had to come through the earlier rounds of the tournament but since then he has dumped Mark Allen out of the event and he is looking for a second win over a top 10 player in the space of three matches. His match with Scott Donaldson was a real battle but credit to the Chinese player, when he needed his best form at 5-4 down he rolled in breaks of 69 and 123 to come through and that merits respect because doing that under that much pressure bodes well. Guodong is entitled to give Murphy a game here but I’m hoping that Murphy comes through because he is my outright pick for this tournament. I’m happy to use that as my interest here.
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Evening Session
Ronnie O’Sullivan vs Si Jiahui
The pick of the evening quarter finals will be the one on the main table when Ronnie O’Sullivan takes on the former World Championship semi-finalist Si Jiahui in what should be a decent match if both play to the potential that we know they can.
Both men had to come through deciding frames in the last round. O’Sullivan came from behind to beat Zhang Anda in a high quality encounter while Si held off a fightback from Pang Junxu and eventually fell over the line. I think the youngster is going to need a marked improvement on that effort if he is to get anything out of O’Sullivan. You kind of getting the feeling that while the Rocket isn’t firing on all cylinders, he has got what he needs when he really needs it and that makes taking Si Jiahui a less appealing prospect but I can’t really get enough of a feel for O’Sullivan to tell whether he is worth taking to cover a handicap. I’ll leave this one alone.
Jimmy Robertson vs Mark Williams
The other quarter final in the evening session pits the other ‘Class of 92’ member left in the tournament in Mark Williams against the man who took out the third player in that group in John Higgins earlier in the event in Jimmy Robertson.
Williams has come through against two players outside the top 16 and he’ll look to make the semi-final at the expense of another but it is hard to suggest that the Welshman has been anything close to his best and he might need to find some improvement if he is going to come through here as comfortably as he would want to. Robertson should be feeling good about his chances here. He saw off John Higgins in the last 32 and then took care of the world champion in the last 16 so he is clearly in good touch and has built on a decent effort in Xi’an recently. I’m a little surprised that Robertson is the price that he is because you don’t beat Higgins and Wilson in successive matches if you are not playing well. This is an important match for the Sussex cueist because a win will have him back inside the top 32 and that will give him one less match to play when the UK Championship and World Championship rolls around. Williams has done well to get this far but if Robertson continues the form he has shown so far he is value to beat him.
Tips
Back J.Robertson to beat M.Williams for a 3/10 stake at 3.10 with William Hill
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