World Snooker Champions Do Travel Well!
No less than six former World Snooker Champions have made it through the the last eight of the China Open. A couple are well known for their batting qualities, Peter Ebdon, who faces Stephen Hendry (he is also leading 4-1 as I type) and Graeme Dott.
Dott is currently trailing Stuart Pettman 4-1. One of the stories of this tournament has been Pettman who has reached his first ever ranking event 1/4 final in 17 years as a professional. This shows that there is still a lot of quality lower down the world rankings and further adds to the funny season we have had with 6 different winners in six events.
In the other 1/4 finals later today Ronnie O’Sullivan will once again play John Higgins and Shaun Murphy plays Ryan Day.
I have been saying all season that Ryan Day is due a tournament win, could China finally be it?
My title to this post relates really to those players who do not always perform at tournaments outside of the UK. Ronnie O’Sullivan pulled out of the Bahrain event earlier in the year and the other players on show did not perform either. Maybe the tide is changing, snooker has to change to really become a ‘world sport’ and are players starting to accept this?