After the chaos of Christmas and New Year, it was time to settle down and watch what was set to be a week of top quality snooker as the Top 16* battled it out to win the second Triple Crown event of the 2017-2018 snooker season, The Masters. Taking place at Alexandra Palace, as it has done since 2012, between Sunday 14 January & Sunday 21 January, this year’s edition gave us plenty of drama and surprises. Here’s my look back at the tournament.
Round 1
Play at The Masters 2018 got underway at 13:00 on Sunday 14 January and what a match to get us underway. The first match saw World Number 1 and 3-time champion (2008, 2010 & 2013) Mark Selby taking on the champion of 1998 & 2003, Mark Williams. The opening match of the tournament was won 6-5 by Williams, meaning another early exit for Mark Selby after his Second Round exit in last month’s UK Championship.
Elsewhere in Round 1, Ronnie O’Sullivan whitewashed Marco Fu 6-0 to advance to a Quarter-Final showdown with Mark Allen after defeated Belgian Luca Brecel 6-3. 1999 & 2006 Champion, John Higgins came through his match with fellow Scot Anthony McGill 6-4 to set up a tie with Welshman Ryan Day who came back from 3-0 down to defeat 2011 Champion Ding Junhui. Judd Trump held off a comeback from Liang Wenbo to advance 6-4 to the Quarter-Finals, where he would face Shaun Murphy who came through his match with Ali Carter 6-4. Mark Williams’ reward for beating Selby was a Quarter-Final tie with Kyren Wilson who came through a tight match 6-4 against Barry Hawkins, thus winning his first match at The Masters in his second appearance at the tournament.
Results
Ronnie O’Sullivan 6 – 0 Marco Fu.
Mark Allen 6-3 Luca Brecel.
John Higgins 6-4 Anthony McGill.
Ding Junhui 4-6 Ryan Day.
Judd Trump 6-4 Liang Wenbo.
Shaun Murphy 6-4 Ali Carter.
Barry Hawkins 4-6 Kyren Wilson.
Mark Selby 5-6 Mark Williams.
Quarter-Finals
While 3 out of the 4 Quarter-Finals could have went either way in theory, there was one stand one result amongst the results from this particular round of matches. That result came from the match that saw Mark Allen taking on one of the pre-tournament favourites, Ronnie O’Sullivan. Despite Ronnie winning the opening frame of the match, Mark Allen came out and won the next 6 frames to win the match 6-1 and book his place in the Semi-Finals.
Elsewhere in the Quarter-Finals, John Higgins ran out a comfortable 6-1 winner over Ryan Day to set up a Semi-Final tie with Mark Allen after his win over O’Sullivan. Judd Trump prevailed 6-4 over Shaun Murphy in what was a highly anticipated match that, at first, didn’t quite live up to expectations, but cam to the boil quite nicely as we neared the match’s conclusion. Judd’s reward for getting through was a Semi-Final match against Kyren Wilson. Kyren Wilson came through a pretty comfortable 6-1 winner against Mark Williams who just couldn’t get anything going for him in the match.
Results
Ronnie O’Sullivan 1-6 Mark Allen.
John Higgins 6-1 Ryan Day.
Judd Trump 6-4 Shaun Murphy.
Kyren Wilson 6-1 Mark Williams.
Semi-Finals
The 2 Semi-Finals looked interesting on paper. The one featuring Allen and Higgins had the look of big match written all over it as they have had some great matches in the past. But it was Allen who held the slight advantage given that Higgins hadn’t beat him at The Masters in 3 previous attempts. It was Mark Allen who would prevail again as he won the match 6-3 to reach his first Masters final.
The other Semi-Final was a bit of a cracker. It featured Judd Trump taking on Kyren Wilson who had reached the Semi-Finals in only his second appearance in The Masters. Judd looked all but certain to book his place in The Final, but Kyren produced a magnificent comeback to win the match 6-5.
Results
Mark Allen 6-3 John Higgins.
Judd Trump 5-6 Kyren Wilson.
The Final
After 7 days of great Masters action, we were down to the final 2. Mark Allen who had beaten Brecel, O’Sullivan & Higgins to get to The Final would be taking on Kyren Wilson who had overcome Hawkins, Williams & Trump in his route to The Final. That would mean we would definitely have a brand new name on the Trophy come the end of the night. The match was a best of 19 frame match, with 8 frames to come in the afternoon, and a possible 11 to come in the evening session.
The afternoon session was quite a tight affair with both players struggling to find their rhythm. The frames went back and forth between the 2 and at the end of the session, the score was all square at 4-4. The highest break of the afternoon session was a break of 89 from Kyren Wilson in the 7th frame of the session.
The evening session looked to be heading in the same way after the first 2 frames, but Mark Allen began to show his experience as we headed towards the mid-session interval, making his highest break of the match, 119, to take a 7-5 mid-session lead. After Mark Allen took frame 13, Kyren started to produce a mini-fightback to reduce his arrears to just 1 frame. But Allen made his experience count to win the last 2 frames to take the match 10-7.
Mark Allen’s 10-7 win brought the 8-day tournament to close. A tournament that was on-the-whole pretty high-quality and enjoyable, and offered up some surprise results, which is always good to see. It was also good to see someone new winning a major title. I wonder if this will spring him on to more success in the future. We wil have to wait and see.
The next BBC covered tournament is the Welsh Open (being shown on BBC Wales) between 26 February and 04 March. The next country-wide BBC tournament will be the season-ending World Championship taking place at The Crucible in Sheffield between 21 April and 07 May.
Next time I will be previewing the SuperBowl LII showdown between AFC Champions, New England Patriots and the NFC Champions, the Philadelphia Eagles.
Until next time…
Iain.
Iain A. Graham's Blog 