The 2024 Scottish Open is nearing its climax with the quarter-finals scheduled for Friday at the Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh.
An interesting selection of players remain in the hunt for glory, the Stephen Hendry Trophy, and the £100,000 top prize.
There are two former champions, last year’s beaten finalist, and two ranking event winners from this season already among the remaining octet.
Let’s take a look at all four upcoming matches in the 2024 Scottish Open quarter-finals.
Tom Ford vs Lei Peifan
The Snooker Shoot Out remains a controversial tournament for its status as a ranking event, but how often have we seen it transform a player’s career?
The likes of Barry Hawkins, Martin Gould, Hossein Vafaei, and Chris Wakelin can point to their Shoot Out triumphs as launchpads for greater things on the main tour.
Tom Ford might be the latest name to add to that list after the Englishman emerged with the 2024 title last Saturday in Leicester.
Ford, who had won only two games all season prior to the Shoot Out, has taken the confidence from landing a maiden full ranking title into this week’s action in Scotland.
The 41 year-old will be the favourite when he takes on qualifier Lei Peifan, but he’ll have to perform at his best judging by the Chinese competitor’s results this week.
Lei became a ranking event quarter-finalist for the first time with impressive wins over Vafaei, Shaun Murphy, and Stuart Bingham.
Interestingly, the 21 year-old has already beaten Ford twice this season.
Noppon Saengkham vs Mark Allen
Last year’s Scottish Open runner-up challenges the 2018 champion in arguably the tie of the quarter-finals this year.
Saengkham backed up his impressive defeat of Mark Selby in the last 32 with a similar 4-2 ousting of Ali Carter on Thursday.
Allen, meanwhile, edged Jack Lisowski in a 4-3 thriller to sustain his hopes of landing the last ranking piece of silverware of the calendar year.
The Northern Irishman has faced Saengkham six times in the past, winning on four occasions.
The latter could do with going even further in this event as he provisionally ranks outside the top 32 on the one-year rankings.
Only the top 32 will be invited to the World Grand Prix in Hong Kong, and there aren’t many opportunities left to make an impact on that front.
Wu Yize vs Chris Wakelin
Wu Yize and Chris Wakelin are good examples of players who have been making a more frequent impression at the business end of competitions.
Wu was a semi-finalist in last week’s Shoot Out and he just missed out on a maiden ranking title in the first of this term’s Home Nations series events, the English Open.
Wakelin has been on a constant upward trajectory since winning the Shoot Out at the start of 2023.
By reaching the International Championship final last month, the 32 year-old deservedly broke into the top 16 of the world rankings for the first time.
The way things are going, it probably won’t be too long until Wu, whose provisional end-of-season ranking is up to number 23, joins him in that elite bracket.
Wakelin and Wu have faced each other twice before, sharing one victory apiece.
Luca Brecel vs Xiao Guodong
There were genuine concerns that Luca Brecel could end this season with a ranking outside the top 64, therefore losing his professional tour card.
But many of those fears have been allayed thanks to his run to the quarter-finals in the 2024 Scottish Open draw.
Brecel dug deep to claw back a 3-1 deficit and beat Ding Junhui in the last 16 on Thursday to safeguard a last-eight appearance in a ranking event for only the second time since his World Championship success in May last year.
Next up for the former Scottish Open champion is another proven Chinese ranking event winner from this campaign in Xiao Guodong.
Xiao has been in incredible form all season, memorably winning the Wuhan Open for a maiden ranking success before also reaching the final of the Champion of Champions invitational.
The 35 year-old leads his head-to-head with Brecel 3-2 and, despite his opponent’s higher official ranking, will probably start this affair as the favourite.
2024 Scottish Open quarter-finals
Friday, December 13th – Schedule
12pm UTC
Chris Wakelin vs Wu Yize
Following the 12pm game
Luca Brecel vs Xiao Guodong
7pm UTC
Tom Ford vs Lei Peifan
Noppon Saengkham vs Mark Allen
Click here to view the latest results
(snooker.org)
Featured photo credit: WST
