On the morning of January 19, Beijing time, the official social account of the World Snooker Tour announced that in the 6th group, Gould, Wilson, Ding Junhui and the 5th place Carter of the group will enter the 7th group (February 1/2), and Higgins, O'Sullivan and Neil Robertson will participate in the battle. Brown and Selter, who were 6th and 7th in the group, were eliminated.
This official announcement tells everyone that Ding Junhui is no longer playing! In the semi-finals, he was killed by Gould 2-3 and failed to break through from Group 6, Ding Junhui fell into Group 7, and the 7th group lineup was extremely luxurious: the first person in history O'Sullivan, the ST Masters champion Neil Robertson 2, and the third person in the history of the ranking tournament, Higgins, all three of whom are snooker world champions + Grand Slam winners, and are still at their peak. In addition, this group also has Karen Wilson, who is currently ranked 5th in the world, Ali Carter, the 2-time world runner-up, and even the most inconspicuous Looking Gould, Ding Junhui is also his defeated!
O'Sullivan, Higgins, Robertson joined, and No.5 Karen Wilson! Ding Junhui can get the top four in the group round robin tournament at that time is a big question, maybe after the group game will have to go home, I have to say that falling into such a super death group, now in a sluggish state, the world ranking is about to fall out of the top 32 Ding Junhui is actually out of the play. Even Ding Junhui, who was at his peak, wanted to get the only group championship from these 7 people, it was very difficult, let alone now.
Neil Robertson is the champion of the new Kosnolk Masters, ranked 4th in the world, and has a career record of 10-9 with Ding Junhui, the key is that since 2014, in the professional competition, Ding Junhui has not defeated Neil Robertson for 7 years.
In the past year, Higgins won the snooker Players Championship, this season, Higgins has reached the final many times, although it has been runners-up consecutively, but this also shows that Higgins is still at the peak of the state, the last 2 encounters, Higgins has defeated Ding Junhui.
As for O'Sullivan, it goes without saying that Ding Junhui is the biggest bitter lord in his career! There is also the world's 5th Karen Wilson, just defeated his own Gould, 2-time World Championship runner-up Ali Carter, Ding Junhui why talk about the group championship?