Well Big Dave came up with the goods with a gritty 5-3 win over local hero Ding in today's televised Shanghai Masters encounter early this morning; in the process landing the rather juicy odds of 11/4.
Although Bananaman perhaps didnt need to down too many yellow uns today to see off a fairly tepid Ding performance, he certainly had the right kind of gameplan and the frustration in the home players game was soon evident as he failed to find any kind of rhythm during the match.
With Ding out of the way, it does open a chink of light for my big priced outright pick Ricky Walden in the top section, if he could sneak past Neil Robertson he would have a great chance of making at least the semi.
Walden is on a great run of results at present, and in fact the main worry is that he is due a loss, he has won a couple of qualifiers at Prestatyn, two rounds here and lifted the Belgian Open for good measure in between where he knocked out Robbo en route.
That win shows he shouldnt have too much to fear from the Aussie and I make it a pretty even contest so took the 6/5 Walden in that one; Robbo beat an out of sorts Fergal O Brien in the first round but not sure that is the strongest of form lines.
Andy Hicks served up a big shock by beating Shaun Murphy 5-1 today so will give him a chance to confirm that showing at 7/4 against Hong Kong cueist Marco Fu, who usually tends to get bogged down in matches where he starts a strong favourite, seeming to prefer the underdogs tag.
My other bet from today didnt fare so well with Mark Williams easing out Ali Carter 5-2 but from a price perspective the right one won I suppose!!
We had our first snooker match today with a friendly against the No 1 team at the club (I have joined last year's rock bottom placed No 2 team as captain if you recall). As expected we struggled somewhat and lost 3-1, I managed to scrape a win but it could be a long hard season on that showing and that was with our supposedly weakest player not turning up!!
Still looking around and making a few phone calls to try and strengthen before the season starts proper next week but there seems a general malaise about all the decent players in the area, does make you worry where snooker will be in a few years time, particularly in the more rural areas.
Anyhow, better get some shut eye
See you soon
Rick
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