The wait is over. The World Championship begins at the Crucible Theatre on Saturday as the eyes of snooker fans all over the globe switch their attention to the Sheffield venue as the 17 day marathon gets underway.
We’ve got four matches setting out on the first day. Two of them begin in the morning and conclude in the evening while two more start and finish later in the weekend. Throughout the whole of the tournament we will preview every match in full and we’ll begin with the defending champion.
Stuart Bingham vs Ali Carter
Will the Crucible curse strike at the first opportunity? It is fair to say that Ali Carter is one of the qualifiers high on the list of players that Bingham would have preferred to avoid but that hasn’t materialised and now he must begin his title defence in what is much more than a normal banana skin.
Ali Carter has a very strong record over Bingham having won 13 of their 18 meetings and nabbed a draw in that time. Bingham clearly doesn’t like playing Carter so he has plenty of psychological battles to overcome in this match and I don’t think it will help Bingham that Ali had three matches to really sharpen up his game.
When Bingham was first world champion at the beginning of the season you could tell he was nervous with the tag, almost like it was a bit of a burden rather than relax and enjoy the feeling and I just wonder if he will be back in that position here. If he is you’ve got to think this could be Carter’s day.
Carter’s in decent touch. Just listening to him after he has qualified he is a motivated and determined man to succeed and push on despite everything that has happened to him in the past. It would take a brave man to bet against him winning this and I’m not that. I’m with the Captain here.
Marco Fu vs Peter Ebdon
While the Bingham vs Carter match looks like it could be an open, expansive affair this one looks like it could be a real war of attrition, the kind which might not get the coverage the other one will get!
On head to head records there isn’t much between the two with Fu leading 7-5 but it has to be said that it is a fairly dated record so I’m not really sure how much we should read into that.
Prior to the draw being made Fu wasn’t a seed I was thinking of taking on and I’m not thinking of doing it now really but you have to give Ebdon all the respect in the world. He has already shown all of his fighting qualities in qualifying coming from 9-3 down in the second round to beat Gerard Greene at 2am before winning another match and making it here.
I considered the overs in frames in this one but Ebdon put a lot of work into qualifying and hasn’t had much in the way of recovery time which is a concern so I’ll give this one a swerve.
Stephen Maguire vs Alan McManus
Every year we seem to get an all-Scottish clash in the first round and this is the one for this year. Stephen Maguire comes into this tournament off the back of a good and much needed run in China where he secured his place in the top 16 and he’ll be hoping that form has carried over here so that he can continue to progress.
He’ll have seen however that McManus looked in really good touch in the qualifiers. He saw off Jimmy Robertson in the final qualifier in an almost dismissive way when many thought that was a banana skin for the ITV4 pundit. If he has that form with him then he could be a real danger here.
I can’t really get a feel for this one from the off although it should be noted that Maguire’s recent record in this tournament doesn’t make good reading so he could be ripe for a fourth successive first round upset having lost 10-9 to Dechawat Poomjaeng, Ryan Day and Anthony McGill in the last three years. I’ll reassess where we stand after the first session.
Shaun Murphy vs Anthony McGill
This is the second year in succession that these two meet in this tournament after Murphy saw off McGill in the quarter finals last year. I think this one could turn into one of the matches of the first round, especially given how well McGill played in the qualifying for this event.
McGill banged in three centuries and a couple of 90 breaks in qualifying and his scoring was a feature of his run here last year. It wasn’t like he played duds in qualifying either as Thepchaiya Un-Nooh missed the black for a 147 and rattled in a 144 against him.
That scoring has me interested here because it is almost a given that Murphy is going to score well. He cues the ball so well and ever since this tournament last year he has really attacked the balls and that has worked for him so I like the idea of over 1.5 centuries in this match.
They produced four in 21 frames last year and if they can achieve the same success rate in this match then the bet could even land before the first session ends on Saturday afternoon. Whenever they come though I fancy a couple of centuries here.
Tips
WON – Back A.Carter to beat S.Bingham for a 4/10 stake at 2.35 with Coral
Back him here:
WON – Back S.Murphy vs A.McGill – Over 1.5 centuries for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
Back them here:
