“He’s starting to bother me” is a quip made well-known by Jimmy White within the Crucible Theatre in 1994, following his third consecutive world last defeat by Stephen Hendry. It was in truth his 4th last defeat to Hendry and his sixth in whole.
One of many massive speaking factors this season, has been Hendry’s return to the tour – or perhaps lack of it! He did, nevertheless, stress that it wasn’t a full time comeback, when he accepted a 2 yr wildcard from Barry Hearn. He has solely performed within the Gibraltar Open, the place he made a century break in a 4-1 defeat to Matt Selt.
Extremely, 27 years on since that well-known 18-17 Hendry victory in 1994, the 2 have been paired collectively within the first qualifying spherical – a draw which most individuals thought was a wind up. The truth that Hendry has been retired for the previous 9 years makes this match much more intriguing. Jimmy White has remained on tour all through, however, has had a really lean time throughout the previous few seasons. His finest efficiency this season, by the way, got here within the Gibraltar Open, the place he reached the final 16.
A match up in years passed by, that might solely befit the one desk arrange in The Crucible, will happen behind closed doorways inside the confines of the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. A slight fall from grace of two legends of the sport, nevertheless, there’s nonetheless nice intrigue and curiosity with an enormous contact of nostalgia thrown in. The bookies have White slight favorite to win. Possibly he’ll achieve a tiny little bit of revenge and annoy Hendry this time, who is aware of? But it surely needs to be good……..
There aren’t any fewer than 8 former world finalists within the qualifiers this yr, vying with gamers seeking to both attain the Crucible for the primary time or add to their Crucible appearances. The usual is scary whenever you see gamers of the category of the likes of Bingham, Perry, Carter, Day and Gould all former high 16 and rating occasion winners lurking across the qualifiers.
There are some super potential match ups on paper, however issues by no means work out like that. It’s assured that there might be massive breaks, shocks and comebacks alongside the way in which. Reanne Evans and Rebecca Kenna might be combating as arduous as anybody, perhaps they’ll produce a shock outcome. We regularly get one qualifier who not solely qualifies however then goes on to have run on the Crucible. Gary Wilson, Jamie Clarke, James Cahill, Michael Wasley to call however just a few in recent times.
For what its value, listed below are my 16 Crucible qualifiers:
Z Yuelong
M Selt
R Milkins
T Ford
G Dott
J Jones
L Wenbo
J Perry
A Hamilton
R Walden
M Gould
J Brown
A Carter
S Craigie
X Guodong
S Bingham
