Neal Foulds snooker column: All eyes on the Masters as Judd Trump and Ronnie O'Sullivan take centre stage
The Masters seems to come around faster every year, not that you’ll hear any complaints from me, and there is good reason to believe we have another special week of snooker in store at Alexandra Palace.
This is just a wonderful tournament. Snooker fans of old know all about its rich history, dating back to the days of the Wembley Conference Centre, and in Ally Pally snooker has found another venue befitting this great event.
The old Wembley Conference Centre was a terrific host and gave us some iconic memories, Paul Hunter’s three Masters wins there from 2001 and 2004 immediately coming to mind. Those were special nights and some of the best, most dramatic finals you could ever wish to see.
The Masters and Wembley Arena never felt like a good fit. That was a vast venue that lacked the charm and the soul of the Conference Centre, but Ally Pally took over the mantle and has made the Masters its own. It’s different, but not in a bad way, and the crowds are just fantastic, producing an incredible atmosphere time after time.
I know the players who get to take part in the Masters appreciate just how lucky they are to play there, and that’s part of the reason why there’s always such a mad scramble to make the final line-up. It means everything just to qualify for the Masters, to get the chance to play in front of this crown.
Lure of the Masters still burns bright
You’ve got to feel for Gary Wilson who has won the last two renewals of the Scottish Open yet hasn’t qualified this year, but the likes of Jack Lisowski and Zhang Anda, the latter making his debut this week, won’t be complaining.
The occasion of the Masters has the potential to all be a bit too much for Zhang, but he’s been surprising us all season and in truth, nobody saw his upturn in fortunes in coming. After he lost in the final of the English Open you wondered whether he might have missed his chance, but he played brilliantly to win the International Championship and is here on merit.
The Masters atmosphere gets talked about a lot, but rightly so. It's raucous and it’s boisterous, and you have to be able to handle it. There’s no getting away from that. Ding Junhui openly admits that he finds it a huge challenge, and he might have done more here over the years, given his comparative record in an event like the UK Championship.
Maybe his compatriot will be able to cope with it better, but don’t underestimate what a significant challenge it will be for Zhang.
As for Ding, he features in arguably the tie of round one in a re-run of last month's UK Championship final against Ronnie O’Sullivan. With Ding playing well again, O’Sullivan won’t underestimate him.
It will be interesting to see where O’Sullivan’s game is at.
He missed the Scottish Open after winning in York and has been out in the Far East playing in the Macau Masters, so who knows how much practice he has been putting in. I know he hasn’t won this event since 2017, but he hasn’t lost in the first round since 2011, either, and is always hard to beat at the Masters.
On-song Trump set for bold title defence
Another man who is a tough nut to crack in this event nowadays is Judd Trump, last year’s winner and, of course, successful in 2019 when trouncing O'Sullivan in the final. He made the semi-finals in 2022 as well.
The thing that makes his title defence so fascinating is that he comes into this year’s event in much better shape than 12 months ago. By his own admission, he wasn’t at his best last year, and I know many people think Mark Williams should’ve beaten him in the final. But he didn’t, and Trump deserves great credit for the way he battled throughout. It was a triumph in tenacity and determination.
This time around, he must be feeling much better about his game. He won three tournaments before Christmas and made five finals in all, and comes into the Masters as the form horse if looking at the season as a whole. There’s certainly more expectation this year, and his first-round match with Kyren Wilson promises much.
Another match I’m really looking forward to is the one between Neil Robertson and Barry Hawkins. Two years ago, these two contested the final here, with Robertson running out a convincing winner in the end.
Much has changed since. Hawkins has already won this season, but Robertson’s form has fallen off a cliff. It’s hard to think of a more dramatic fall from grace, and things really aren’t looking good with things like qualification for the Crucible already in perilous danger.
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Robertson headed back to Australia over Christmas, and it would be nice to think that will have done him some good. He started working with Chris Henry a few months ago, but that didn’t work out and old friend Joe Perry was in his corner at the UK Championship. Maybe that will have helped him find what has clearly been missing of late.
Robertson is a fantastic player, up there with the very best, but you only have to look at the betting to see how things have changed in a relatively short space of time. Robertson leads the head-to-head 17-10, he beat Hawkins in the final here only two years, yet it’s the Englishman who is odds-on to win on Tuesday.
Draw favours dangerous Murphy
The other player I must mention is Shaun Murphy, who would just about be my fancy this year. I’ve already said why I think this week could prove real baptism of fire for Zhang, and I’d expect Murphy to have too much for him in their first-round match. After that, things could really open up for the 2015 champion.
Next would be a clash with either Luca Brecel or Jack Lisowski, but neither of that pair would frighten you on recent form. The Brecel we saw in Sheffield would, of course, but he has largely struggled since his World Championship win and whoever he plays out of that pair, Murphy is guaranteed the type of open game he prefers. I’d fancy him against either.
He definitely offered signs of his best before Christmas, and his maximum at the Shoot Out was an outstanding break. I like his draw, with doubts about a few around him, so he’d get my vote in what is, admittedly, always such a hard event to win.
Masters memories with 'Angles McManus'
But that’s how it should be. It’s the Masters, after all. I got within touching distance of the final three times in my playing days, but couldn't quite get over the line. John Parrott beat me by the odd frame in our semi-final in 1989, and then Alan McManus got the better of me 6-4 at the same stage in 1994.
McManus went on to win the tournament the following day, pulling off what was a seismic shock by beating Stephen Hendry in the final. When we talk about players dominating the game nowadays, it’s nothing compared to what Hendry was doing back then. That year, Hendry was once again defending champion at the Masters having won the last five renewals. He’d never previously lost a single match at the Masters going into that final.
It was just an incredible level of dominance and I think me and Alan went into our semi-final desperate to make the final, but knowing just what a monumental task would await for the winner.
Hats off to Alan who never feared anybody and always left everything out on the table. He eventually won the match in a deciding frame, a remarkable achievement when you consider just how much better than everyone else Hendry was at that time.
All these years on and the three of us find ourselves working together again for various broadcasters, be it ITV or Eurosport, trying to bring the sport to life for those at home, though this week doesn’t really require a sales pitch or any special promotion.
It’s the Masters, at Ally Pally, and that’s more than enough.