The Royal London Watches Grand Prix gets underway at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre tomorrow some nine weeks after the last ranking event, the Northern Ireland Trophy, ended.
Therefore, there isn't much form to go on, apart from the Betfred Premier League Sky has been showing on Thursday nights.
Predicting a winner in Aberdeen will be even tougher given the new round robin format which means 120 best of five frame matches over the first four days.
Opinion among the players is divided over the new system. Here are two opposing views:
John Higgins: “I’m for it if it promotes the game. If it goes well I’ll applaud it, but if it doesn’t work then we’ll have to look at something else.
“I suppose the good thing is that you’re guaranteed five matches and if you lose your first one there’s still time to rectify things, but they are much shorter than usual so it’ll be tough.”
Graeme Dott: “I’m not in favour of the new format. The matches are too short and it’s a bit of a lottery. It’s like a penalty shootout. I’m sure it’ll be exciting for the fans and probably to play in, but I’d prefer to have a normal tournament.
“It doesn’t help that I’m in the toughest group, but in every group it’s any two players who could go through because the matches are so short that anyone can beat anyone.”
There are 30 matches tomorrow on six tables.
Can it work?
Yes.
Will it work?
We'll have to wait and see.
No comments:
Post a Comment