Tour Championship: Ding Junhui's opponent in the quarterfinals is released, with a 14-7 advantage, and is expected to reach the top 4
In the early morning of April 2, the 2024 World Snooker Tour, the penultimate ranking tournament of the season, kicked off in the United Kingdom, as a welfare ranking tournament that only the top 12 in a single season are eligible to play, the first round of focus was between Northern Ireland's Allen and the Scottish wizard Higgins, and finally Allen fell behind 1-4 in the first stage, and finally completed the reversal 10-7, thus advancing to the top 8, and will face China's first brother Ding Junhui in the 1/4 finals, which is also the second duel between the two this season.
The Tour Championship is one of the welfare ranking tournaments in each season, and the entry threshold is relatively high, and only the top 12 players who perform well in a single season are eligible to participate. At the beginning of this season, the competition was officially adjusted to expand the scope of participation to the top 12, with five to 12 players competing in the first round, with the winners facing the top four players. In this season, the Chinese army performed well, Zhang Anda and Ding Junhui ranked third or fourth, so they started directly from the second round of the quarterfinals.
Ding's first-round opponent was between Allen and Higgins, while Zhang Anda's opponent was between Gary Wilson and Selby. In addition, the first Trump of the season will face the winner between Williams and Forde, and O'Sullivan will face the winner between Hawkins and Carter. According to the format, the Tour Championship is a best-of-19 tournament with each round being played in two stages.
Allen and Higgins kicked off the opening game of this year's Tour Championship, and after Allen won the first game in the first eight games, Higgins won four games in a row to take a 4-1 lead. However, before the end of the first stage, Allen won three games in a row to chase the big score to a 4-4 draw. In the second stage in the early hours of this morning, Allen continued to fire at full power, following the first stage of hitting 1 shot to break 100, and then hit 2 shots to break 100 in the second stage, and finally defeated Higgins with a score of 10-7, and entered the top 8 strongly, and will face Ding Junhui in the 1/4 finals.
In fact, Ding Junhui and Allen are a pair of enemies, and the two played against Ding Junhui 14-7 before, occupying an advantage, which is also a relatively good opponent. Since last year's British Championship final, Allen reversed Ding Junhui in the final, blocking Ding Junhui's footsteps to hit the fourth championship of the British Championships, which made many Chinese fans "hold grudges". However, from last year's Tour Championship to this season's British Championships, Ding Junhui has defeated Allen twice in a row, which can be regarded as completing revenge. Meeting again at the Tour Championship this time, whether Ding Junhui can maintain his winning streak will also be a major attraction. According to the venue arrangement, at 2 a.m. Beijing time on April 4, the two will play the first stage of 8 rounds, and at 2 a.m. on April 5, the remaining games of the second phase will be played.