Premier League caravan parks in Southampton

The snooker caravan parks in Southampton tonigth

It was a really lonely week last week. No snooker on Thursday night ... what's that all about?! Thankfully we won’t have to worry for tonight though, for Premier League's caravan is already in the city of Southampton where four players will try their best to earn as many points as possible.

This is actually the 8^th week of cue action, which means that two more and that's it. The final stages will kick off and by the end of this month the new name of this year's Premier League champion will be revealed.
But we still have some things going on before that, so let's see who will entertain our hungry hearts for snooker this evening, shall we?

First we shall have the most brilliant clash ever. Well, maybe not the most brilliant, but somewhere around there. The defending champion, Ronnie O'Sullivan will take on the youngster that has “wow-ed” the world with his incredibly perfect cue action, Judd Trump.

Ronnie has 8 points in his pocket after winning week four of the Premier League by beating Matthew Stevens 3-0 and Ali Carter 3-1. Those 6 points were added to those he got after his first appearance (week two) in this year's competition when, unfortunately, he lost the first match, 3-2 in front of Shaun Murphy.

Two great players will hold their cues against each other

So, with only one more week to play (week 10 to be more precise), O'Sullivan needs at least one victory tonight to maintain a favourable position in the rankings.

Trump, on the other hand, is pretty safe. He is the only player that successfully has won two weeks of Premier League. First it was week five, when he beat Mark Williams 3-1 and whitewashed Matthew Stevens 3-0 in the final and second ... a couple of weeks ago, so during week seven, when he defeated Ali Carter and Neil Robertson 3-1. With 12 points in his bag and, as well as Ronnie, with one more appearance during week 10 of the Premier League, Trump's place in the final stages of this competition seem pretty stable (stable = he’s on top of the list with 12 points!!!!) 
Still, it won’t hurt to grab some more points ... you know, just for the road.

The second match of the evening will see Neil Robertson facing China's Ding Junhui. Both of these players have won a Premier League's weekly final and both of them have 10 points in their pockets. Which makes things even harder.

Robertson started his Premier League journey with his left foot losing from the very first week of cue action, 3-0 to Matthew Stevens. But that was it. The man that was well known to run around the snooker table while the shot clock was ticking he only had five seconds left to kill a shot, was now history.
During week three he managed to beat the current world champion John Higgins 3-0 and hammered this evening's opponent, Ding Junhui 3-1.
Last week he brought down Shaun Murphy 3-1, only to lose to Trump in the final, but he still made a pretty decent run. Look out for the Aussie!

Robbo and Ding ... who will win?

Ding always seemed a bit shy during this competition. At least to me. Still, from his very first appearance into this year's Premier League he made it all the way to the final. True, he lost to Robertson, but he made it. Fighting with all his strengths against Shaun Murphy to win the decider, Ding obtained then his first four points (3-2 with Murphy, 3-1 with Robbo). 

But the very next week things changed. Dramatically! He got a perfect whitewash from Carter and that imagine of a player giving up hope for a win is still haunting me. He was pretty down that evening. 
Then it came ... the sweet revenge. It was week six and Ding seemed unstoppable. He beat Jimmy White 3-2 and hammered the man who crashed him a week before, Ali Carter by 3-1. The "Chinese Sensation" was in business.

It goes without saying that tonight is going to be a tough night for each of the four players. Some of them need points to feel that they've really booked themselves a place into the final stages of this competition, and some of them need points to escape from the "we are both on the same place" stigmata.

The action will start from 7.30pm (UK time) on Sky Sports 1, so clear your schedule for some fast snooker.





Useful links to watch snooker:
mypremium.tv
www.sportlemon.tv