While yesterday was an unblemished one for the top professionals, today saw Tian Pengfei cause an upset by defeating world number 8 Marco Fu 4-1 to move into the semi-finals…
July 15th – Round Robin Groups 1 & 2 (Best of 7 frames)
Tian Pengfei 2-4 Li Yan
0-101(100), 13-59, 67-60(51), 77(70)-20, 34-66, 48-73
Ricky Walden 1-4 Liang Wenbo
49-85(73), 15-82(52), 0-87(87), 88(61)-8, 0-85(56)
Marco Fu 1-4 Tian Pengfei
32-64(56), 107(53)-16, 55-69, 22-111(77), 7-69
Meeting for the third time in recent months with Tian having come out on top in the China Open and Marco having gained revenge in the Beijing International Challenge, today saw two of Asia’s best players meet once again in what would prove to be a decisive match.
Though Marco is the more established player, Tian has been recording some impressive results recently and got out of the blocks quickly with a break of 66, before Fu levelled things with a 53. From there however it was all one way traffic as Tian rattled through the next three with a best run of 77 in frame four. Though he then lost out in his final match to Li Yan, he was still able to join him in the semi-finals on frame difference, leaving Marco bottom of the group.
Meanwhile in the other group, Liang Wenbo produced an excellent performance to see off Ricky Walden with breaks of 73, 52, 87 and 56, but due to his hard-earned victory over Chan Wai Kei yesterday, Ricky has managed to join Liang in tomorrow’s semi-finals.
The line-up is as follows:
Group A winner v Group B No. 2: Liang Wenbo v Li Yan
Group B winner v Group A No. 2: Tian Pengfei v Ricky Walden