And just like that, we’re at the Quarter Finals of the World Championships. We have:

Chris Wakelin v Zhao Xintong

Si Jiahui v Ronnie O’Sullivan

Mark Williams v John Higgins

Judd Trump v Luca Brecel

Any shocks so far?

Ha, a few. Lei Peifan coming back from 6-2 down to beat defending Champion Kyren Wilson on the opening day was definitely a curtain-raiser. However we all know that Kyren was guaranteed to lose at some point due to the CRUCIBLE CURSE, so he just politely did it as soon as possible.

Chris Wakelin finds himself in the quarter finals after a very convincing victory over maximum man Mark Allen. I’d probably not deem this a huge shock in itself given how well Wakelin has been playing this season and how both his higher ranked opponents (Robertson and Allen) seem to struggle at the Crucible these days. But I was quite shocked at the scoreline in the Allen match, which at one point Chris led 12-4, it really was a comprehensive performance. I’m not going to suggest he’ll win the tournament, but those of us who thought he was a dark horse for a decent run weren’t just guessing at random – I suspect he’ll give Zhao a tight match too.

But the biggest shock was almost certainly Ben Woollaston beating Mark Selby. No disrespect to Ben but I don’t think anybody outside of the Woollaston household gave him much of a chance, other than maybe Mark Selby himself who didn’t like playing a good friend. But Woollaston quietly went about his work while Selby visibly struggled – in circa 20 years of watching Mark Selby I don’t think I’ve ever seen him lose his temper with anything, his temperament is the bedrock upon which the rest of his game is built… but once he threw that missed yellow down the table in frustration (something ever single snooker player has done by the way) then it very much looked like something big was happening.

So are Lei and Woollaston dangerous unknown quantities then?

Alas no, both of them lost in the next round to the “more fancied” player. Si and Zhao both sailed into the quarter finals, not exactly with ease but I don’t think they ever looked like not doing it. Zhao hardly missed in his first round match against Jak Jones, then was less fluent and had a slight bit of hassle getting over the line against Lei Peifan, but managed it.

The real ‘unknown quantities’ have been Luca Brecel and some fella called Ronnie who seems like he might know what he’s doing with a snooker cue…

I never fully bought the ‘Ronnie will be lucky to win a match’ narrative, he simply wouldn’t have turned up if he didn’t think he could win. Carter was a challenge on paper but Ronnie breezed past him, especially the second session with centuries galore. Pang looked like the sort of tricky ‘functional’ fixture that might struggle to get Ronnie’s juices flowing, but despite not being at his best for large swathes of the match again it’s been a handsome victory.

Si should be a more difficult test but his R2 match was not exactly dripping with quality. I expect ROS v Si to be one of those odd games where there’s lots of heavy scoring but also lots of errors, and I still don’t think we’ll know if Ronnie is fully tuned in unless, say, he finds himself 12-10 down with it all to do. He could easily get to the semi final without giving us any clue as to what boxers would call his ring-craft, which is crazy really. He admitted as much himself in his post match interview, that he doesn’t really know if he’s got the game to go far. Talk of the draw opening up doesn’t really mean much – there have been several tournaments, including last year’s World Championship, where it looked like a relative formality and Ronnie only had to turn up to win… only for something to go awry. And there have been many times where he’s had much tougher draws but charted his course successfully.

Suspect plenty of players would love to have no game and get to the last 8 of a World Championship, but Ronald is judged on different standards to almost everybody else. If he gets past Si, he could potentially play Zhao in the semi. In what we assume be an open and attacking game, he could even get to the final without at any point getting bogged down, far from ideal preparation for having 35 frames against, say, John Higgins or Judd Trump. I personally feel Wakelin would be a better acid test of his matchplay in a semi final, but it’s all crystal ball stuff, his first job is to get past Si who has been, by his standards, quite unassuming so far in this tournament. If the more swashbuckling version of Si turns up and plays to his best against his idol, Ronnie could do what Ronnie sometimes does and lose relatively meekly, but who knows.

The phrase ‘who knows’ is basically Luca Brecel in a nutshell. Against Day he seemed to be disdainful of playing safety shots – adopting a policy of just giving them a good old wallop and hoping for the best. I actually think Luca is onto something with this approach, he clearly doesn’t want to get into any long drawn out affairs and I reckon he’s decided that if you hit any ball hard enough at some point it will go in and you can just ride your luck with where the white ends up. He might lose the odd frame that he shouldn’t, but he doesn’t seem to particularly care and wants to keep the frames ticking over. Of course in his second round match he barely needed any safety play whatsoever because he won 12 frames in a row in one of the most aggressive and dominant displays I’ve ever personally watched, with poor old Ding practically a spectator.

Luca v Judd is the tie of the round for me as an entertainment spectacle, and we have no clue what to expect from our Belgian Air Miles enthusiast. Judd could win 13-2 or he could lose 13-2, it seems to hinge upon which side of bed Luca has got out of that morning.

Has the real Judd Trump turned up too?

He most certainly has. Of all the big names, he’s not only looked in good nick but also had a very tough test of ability against Shaun Murphy which he passed with flying colours. It wasn’t totally flawless though – Judd wasn’t at his best at the start of that match and Murphy at one point looked like he might mount a comeback at the end. However Judd had broken the back of it in the evening session where he also got the £100k centuries bonus monkey off his back… Now his sights will be set on that second world title which has eluded him for so long.

The only things going against Judd really are: his opponent, who as I’ve said above could be unplayable; his dislike of the 2 table setup, he’s already had a few moans about conditions; and the fact that one of John Higgins or Mark Williams will be in his way over 33 frames in the semis, which could tire anyone out. But I still think Judd looks up for the job here and, since Selby’s loss and in defeating Murphy himself, to me becomes favourite for the title.

What about Higgins and Williams, weren’t they having off-table problems?

Well whatever off-table issues they may have been having, they’re both in the quarter finals. Higgins needed a decider to get past Xiao in what was a strange old match – Higgins didn’t look like the vintage snooker no-mistakes merchant we have come to know: there were a few safety errors, a couple of nervy shots in the balls and even an in-off from a black ball finish that if it was anyone else other than Higgins we might have classed as careless errors. But he’s still there…

Mark Williams has admitted he’s booked in for lens surgery after this tournament, and so this could actually be his last tournament as a professional snooker player if it all doesn’t go to plan. Or the surgery might give him another 5-10 years at the top table. Eitherway, he says he can’t really see both cue ball and object ball so has adapted his game accordingly. If you didn’t know that, you wouldn’t have spotted he was having too much ocular trouble because he dealt with a spirited Wu Yize performance with ruthless efficiency and then knocked out a fired-up Vafaei.

Quite what to expect from their tie is anybody’s guess – traditionally Williams seems to up his game against Higgins in big tournaments. From their second round games I’d suggest Williams just about shades it, but it’s a fool’s errand to write off John Higgins who just always seems to find a way.

Zhao Xintong – some plucky amateur isn’t he?

I assume the commentators are contractually obliged to avoid mention of why he had to come through the amateur setup to get here, because to the best of my knowledge it hasn’t been mentioned at all (although I didn’t watch his full game v Peifan). The whys and wherefores of that are not the topic of this blog, but he’s most certainly not some random having a good run – he was a hot prospect years ago, despite his age has already been around the block on the tour and, oh yes, has a ‘Triple Crown’ trophy on his mantlepiece.

There’s some chatter about whether Zhao might go on to win it – I still can’t see how he can get past the more battle-hardened top pros who will be wise to his potting abilities. For whatever reason, Zhao’s style of play is just so easy on the eye that it seems like he’s playing a different game to everyone else at times. Frames rattle through at a decent pace, he doesn’t get too drawn into safety play, he sees the shot and plays it – all characteristics of Ronnie O’Sullivan in his 1992-1999 early software release, pre-upgrades. One thing Ronnie didn’t do in those years was win a World Title – partially because there was this lad called Stephen Hendry with a similar aim every year, but by Ronnie’s own admission he hadn’t quite worked out how to align his breakbuilding abilities with the more defensive arts needed over long multi-session matches.

The game is slightly different now, with most other opponents also looking to score heavily in one visit, but if Zhao comes up against someone who can mix it in the matchplay department I can’t see him just potting everything for 3 or 4 sessions. His route to the final would be beating Wakelin, then most likely O’Sullivan followed by Trump/Higgins/Williams/Brecel in the final. If the draw goes that Zhao has to beat Si and Brecel then he may well win it, but any of the others mentioned will be a bit more wise as to how to deal with consistently prolific breakbuilders, what with them all having been there done that themselves for years.

Anything else grinding your gears?

I’ll still never be convinced that you can win a World Title and do co-commentary (until someone actually does it at which point I’ll still moan about it anyway). Will Mark Allen and Shaun Murphy – both of whom looked imperious in their first round ties – be sat there wondering if they maybe could have put more effort into the snooker rather than the microphone? Is it really possible to have 17-ish days of intensive practice and preparation in this most mentally gruelling of sports punctuated by several hours of media work?

For what it’s worth Murphy didn’t do a lot wrong against Trump and I don’t think poor preparation can be blamed, he simply got beaten by the better player. That still doesn’t quite answer the question on why he’s been on media duty for almost every session, including bafflingly being selected for punditry on the Trump v Zhou final session so had to do a really odd post-match interview with his next opponent. Can you imagine Stephen Hendry doing that when he was there to win a title? Absolutely not. Were literally no other commentators available for that? Somebody needs to look at the scheduling as it didn’t look great for me – although from social media it appears that this divides opinion: some are simply not bothered about it at all, so fair enough, maybe I’m too critical of it.

What I do think unites everyone re BBC commentary gripes is there seems to be an uptick in people “phoning in” their work. In the very first session of the whole tournament we got told by John Virgo that Lei Peifan “looks a solid player” as if he’d won a raffle to be there, rather than having won the Scottish Open and come through qualifiers. John Parrott “doesn’t know much about” quite a few players – well why the fuck not? That’s literally your job mate. There’s only 32 players to know about, of which say 20 will be well known. So doing 30 mins research on the other 12 is basically less than a day’s work on the eve of the tournament, for which I suspect they will earn a decent wedge that would feel like a small lottery win to you and I. Even just finding out how to pronounce their names would be a respectful start.

Go on Youtube, or if you can’t be bothered with that just a quick look around Twitter/X will give access to a wide range of opinions on players. If you can’t be bothered with that, surely you could get a runner or junior researcher to do it for you? And even if you’re going to do it half arsed, don’t bloody admit it to us licence payers who not only are sort of paying you in the first place, but who could actually get on there and do a better job. Seema Jaswal and Hazel Irvine clearly do a bit of homework and they are more of a compere, so at the very minimum I expect anyone with a microphone in their hand to know a bit about who they are commentating upon.

I’m keen to stress I have a soft spot for both Johns Virgo and Parrott, suspect they’re great fun over a beer or three and are very much part of the snooker furniture… but for crying out loud lads, we’re paying you to do this, it’s never been easier to find out what you need – just do your bloody research.

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