The second match of the 16, August 2019 morning session will oppose John Parrott to the winner of Willie Thorne v Darren Morgan.

set on winning John was nicknamed “the Entertainer”, but he was dead serious at the table. He won nine ranking events, including the 1991 World Championship and the 1991 UK Championship, making him one of the only six players to have won both tournaments in the same year. His highest ranking, which he held for three seasons, was n°2. He scored 221 centuries – a remarkable feat at the time – including a 147.

When playing on WSS ROKiT Tour,  John likes to honour his nickname, and often cracks a joke aimed at his opponent,  at the MC, or even at members of the audience.

You can read John Parrott’s profile on this blog here

And John Parrott’s profile by Elliot West is here

John will face either Willie Thorne or Darren Morgan. The preview of that match is available on this blog.

Should John face Darren, as I expect, we have a serious match on our hands. Although John had a much impressive carreer than Darren, the latter has a 5-2 lead in their head-to-head, and notably beat him at the World Championship in 1994. Taking into account that John won the first match they played in 1988 when Darren was in his first year as a pro, the statistics are heavily in favour of Darren. You can see the details of the seven matches they played on cuetracker.

Mini Preview. If John Parrott does indeed meet Darren Morgan, I expect Darren to win, partly because of their head to head, mainly because Darren is still playing competitively on a regular basis.  If, much to my surprise, he faces Willie, I definitely fancy John to win.

Just for the record here are the details of the John v Willie head-to-head (source cuetracker) . They played each other 17 times, John won 11 of their matches, Willie 5, and they had a draw. Those elements, combined with Willie’s health and eyes issues explain why I’m not giving Willie much chances.