“He’s starting to harass me” is a quip made well-known by Jimmy White within the Crucible Theatre in 1994, following his third consecutive world ultimate defeat by Stephen Hendry. It was in actual fact his 4th ultimate defeat to Hendry and his sixth in whole.

One of many massive speaking factors this season, has been Hendry’s return to the tour – or perhaps lack of it! He did, nevertheless, stress that it wasn’t a full time comeback, when he accepted a 2 yr wildcard from Barry Hearn. He has solely performed within the Gibraltar Open, the place he made a century break in a 4-1 defeat to Matt Selt.

Extremely, 27 years on since that well-known 18-17 Hendry victory in 1994, the 2 have been paired collectively within the first qualifying spherical – a draw which most individuals thought was a wind up. The truth that Hendry has been retired for the previous 9 years makes this match much more intriguing. Jimmy White has remained on tour all through, however, has had a really lean time throughout the previous few seasons. His finest efficiency this season, by the way, got here within the Gibraltar Open, the place he reached the final 16.

A match up in years passed by, that will solely befit the one desk arrange in The Crucible, will happen behind closed doorways throughout the confines of the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield. A slight fall from grace of two legends of the sport, nevertheless, there may be nonetheless nice intrigue and curiosity with an enormous contact of nostalgia thrown in. The bookies have White slight favorite to win. Perhaps he’ll achieve a tiny little bit of revenge and annoy Hendry this time, who is aware of? But it surely needs to be good……..

There are not any fewer than 8 former world finalists within the qualifiers this yr, vying with gamers seeking to both attain the Crucible for the primary time or add to their Crucible appearances. The usual is horrifying if you see gamers of the category of the likes of Bingham, Perry, Carter, Day and Gould all former high 16 and rating occasion winners lurking across the qualifiers.

There are some great potential match ups on paper, however issues by no means work out like that. It’s assured that there can be massive breaks, shocks and comebacks alongside the best way. Reanne Evans and Rebecca Kenna can be preventing as onerous as anybody, perhaps they are going to produce a shock end result. We regularly get one qualifier who not solely qualifies however then goes on to have an excellent run on the Crucible. Gary Wilson, Jamie Clarke, James Cahill, Michael Wasley to call however a number of in recent times.

For what its value, listed below are my 16 Crucible qualifiers:

Z Yuelong

M Selt

R Milkins

T Ford

G Dott

J Jones

L Wenbo

J Perry

A Hamilton

R Walden

M Gould

J Brown

A Carter

S Craigie

X Guodong

S Bingham