Editor / 30 April 2010 Free Bet View Market

"Mark Selby will also be back next year and my money is on him doing so as defending champion."

And then there were four. Ronnie O'Sullivan, John Higgins and Ding Junhui are amongst the players to have exited the Crucible stage for this year and left wondering what might have been. They were the three big fancies going into this tournament and whereas the first two have been here and done it in the past, the same can't be said of Ding. Whereas a few years back the question was simply "When will he be World Champion?" it's now become "Will he ever be World Champion?".

This was meant to be the year when he went far in a tournament in which he has a poor record, for a player of his calibre. He won the UK Championship a few months back, he's settled in Sheffield and for the first time in a while he looked relaxed and happy to be playing the game. A second round showdown with a player like Shaun Murphy isn't on anyone's wish list but during the early exchanges it looked like Ding would get the better of a player who has given him plenty of problems in the past and against whom he has a poor head-to-head record. But in the end, it wasn't to be.

This happens a lot in snooker, the same way it does in tennis and other individual sports. They call them your "bogie players", opponents you probably should beat or at least compete with on level terms but who for one reason or another seem to have a psychological edge over you. It was the same with me and Peter Ebdon. I hated playing him. Not because I disliked the bloke but just because there was something about the way he played that meant I couldn't find any rhythm and play my natural game. I'd much rather be playing Stephen Hendry than him and that was in the days when he was the best player on the planet!

For what it's worth I'm not writing Ding off just yet. He's been around for a while but it's easy to forget just how young he is and he'll have plenty more chances to come good at the Crucible. The pressure of being China's big hope of producing their first-ever World Champion is huge and at times it's seemed like he hasn't been able to handle it. But with each year that passes hopefully he gets more and more used to it. He actually looked pretty good at times and he'll come back next year a better player.

Mark Selby will also be back next year and my money is on him doing so as defending champion. Ok, he started poorly against Graeme Dott in the semi but that's understandable. Beating a player like Ronnie O'Sullivan, especially after coming from 9-5 and 11-9 down, is mentally and physically exhausting for anyone but he's only trailing by two frames right now and in the longer format still has plenty of time to recover and get back to playing his best. His best should be good enough to take out Dott and set up a super final against Neil Robertson. At [2.7] I'm firmly in the Jester's camp to win it this year.

Finally a word on the exhibition match between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor, played to commemorate 25 years since the latter's epic win in what is probably the most famous frame of snooker ever played. The "re-match" was great to watch; the arena was absolutely packed with fans, members of the Media and past and current players and everyone loved it.

It got me thinking about what's changed in snooker over the last 25 years. Firstly, players have far better haircuts than they did back then and their suits are a lot less dodgy; the pints and fags have been replaced by mineral water. At the table itself, the players aren't necessarily any better now than they were back then, they're just far more aggressive. The big emphasis now is on trying to win the frame at one visit because if you let your opponent in, there's every chance they'll do that themselves. Players like Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor would have been just as awesome if they'd been born twenty years later, they would have just adapted their games a little.

The other big difference is of course money. A player ranked around 20-30 in the world struggles to make a living even nowadays but the big superstars who consistently win the big-money tournaments take home some serious money these days and that wasn't the case back in the eighties. Money is one of the big issues that Barry Hearn has been brought in to tackle and his proposed solution seems to be that by creating more tournaments throughout the season there will be more prize money up for grabs and that some of the players ranked outside the top 5 or 6 will be able to make a better living out of the game by winning these new tournaments. That certainly sounds like a decent plan and it will be interesting to see the developments that take place over the next few months.

Recommended Bet:

Back Mark Selby to win the World Championships at 2.7