Hi folks, glad you found your way here,
it has been a while since my last blogpost. Basically it has to do with a busy real life + my work at wikipedia etc pp.. Moreover, I am running out of countries to continue my "Focus on...."-series. There are a few left (Belgium/Netherlands e.g.) but somehow I cant find the right motivation right now. Maybe somewhen else, but this blog shall not become totally inactive, so I'll just write some random stuff going through my mind.
While I am writing this, the Snooker WC qualifiers are underway and all those guys battle hard to make their way to the Crucible. Most impressive for me was Scotsman Anthony McGill, who whitewashed Adam Wicheard.
But lots of other players showed good performances too so far, including Luca Brecel, Yu Delu and Justin Astley. Besides that, Igor Figueiredo still has all chances to be the first Brazilian player at the Crucible, after he won a thrilling match today against Liu Song (sad, that it wasnt streamed though).
If you take a look at the last years, some of the lower ranked outsiders always made it through to the Crucible. Recent examples are Zhang Anda 2010 and Andrew Paggett 2011. Both made it through all 4 qualification matches.
The most extreme example still is John Giles, who qualified as #497 of the world rankings in 1993. Spencer Dunn follows at #460; also in 1993. It was the time when the game went open and the main tour wasnt limited to 96 (or 99 or 128) players as it is now.
In the same year, Ronnie O'Sullivan played his first World Championship as #415 of the world by the way. (all stats from Chris Downer's Crucible Almanach. God, I love this book.)
The lowest ranked quarterfinalists were Peter Ebdon (unranked in his debut season 1992) and Lee Walker (1997 as #189). If we go further to half/semifinals, either Shaun Murphy, the world champion of 2005 as #48 or Terry Griffiths as an unranked player in 1979 are winning, both are hard to compare though.
Well, I "stole" enough content of the Almanach for today I guess. I'm looking forward to a great WC and a short snookerless time afterwards (Q-School, new season begins in June already). So I'll finish here for the moment.
P.S. Just noticed, that I just had my 666th visitor (well, I guess ~ 100 out of those were my, myself and I, but however...), so we end this with a classic song. ;)
P.P.S. Stephen Maguire is still my under the radar favorite for the WC (because its boring to bet on Trump, O'Sullivan or Higgins ;)
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