Doesn’t time fly? Yep, another 17 days of Snooker goodness. It’ll drive wifey up the wall, but it’s a hell of lot better than watching Coronation Street :D

Anyhoo, the tournament seems to have got off to a good start with reigning champion Graeme Dott falling foul of the Crucible curse (i.e. no champion has ever come back after their first win and taken the championship the following year). Usually previous champs manage to stick it our longer than the first round, but I’m actually delighted to see him go. I know I said last year I was happy to see him beat Ebdon in the final, but really, neither player is particularly interesting to watch.

In other news, Ronnie O’Sullivan trounced poor Ding Junhui 10 frames to 2 yesterday. It wasn’t the classic everyone was hoping for and it seems as if Ronnie has got his head back together (again) after walking out of the UK Championships back in December. Ideally I’d like to see him in final, but there’s that nagging feeling that he’ll hit one of those scrappy patches, give up trying and get knocked out. Since the year he won, I’ve not since him play with that same level of conviction and composure.

As for Ding, well I think he was just feeling the pressure of his first Crucible appearance. I mean he certainly can play, watch his 147 at the Masters for proof of that. It’s just that Ronnie was showing some form and I think nerves got the better of Ding with some silly long shots and at times overly aggressive play.

There have been a couple of other upsets with Ken Doherty and Mark Williams getting knocked out, but other than that, the rest of the first round seems to going as you’d expect. I just hope we get some fast paced players through to the latter stages.

Oh and this is fun. They have a tournament predictor which is updated after each match. At the moment, I’ve got Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stephen Hendry in the final! Not very likely is it?