Much is expected of Ding Junhui and his prodigious talent is not under any doubt.

But it is no coincidence that Ding has not performed consistently ever since his meltdown against Ronnie O’ Sullivan at the Masters last season.

He currently has a fragile temperament when dealing with setbacks and sometimes his choice of shot could be described as audacious at best, plain irresponsible at worst.

Marco Fu is the more experienced player and also the more cautious player. That is not to say he cannot pot fluently, but he has shown he can beat strong opponents in more ways than one.

If he is to prevail in this match he will need both his potting and his safety game to be somewhere near their top notches.

The last meeting between these two players was at the Masters in January which Fu won against an out of sorts Ding.

Fu has had the better season having won the Grand Prix tournament and having also made the semi-finals at the Masters, and he has reached the semi-finals at the Crucible before and also defeated past champions Ronnie O’ Sullivan, John Higgins and Ken Doherty at this venue.

Form and long match pedigree would suggest Fu should start this match as the favourite, yet for all that, Ding firing on all cylinders would be too strong for his opponent from Hong Kong.

I have a hunch that this could be Ding’s turn to come out on top. Prediction: Junhui 10-7 Fu

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