It has been a dramatic day at Pontin’s this Tuesday as the winners of the Masters qualifying tournament from 2005-2008 all crashed out of the event, ensuring that we are almost certain to have a new winner come the end of the week…
Last season’s event winner Judd Trump has endured a tough start to the season and his poor form continued today as despite a magnificent break of 125, he was sent home by former Welsh Open finalist Andrew Higginson. He will now player the impressive Anda Zhang who saw off his far more experienced opponent Dave Harold with some heavy scoring this morning.
For the previous winner Barry Hawkins however it was even worse as he became the latest player to fall against the impressive Ben Woollaston, while twice former champion Stuart Bingham lost an epic match with Thailand’s James Wattana who is hoping to play at Wembley for the first time since 1999. Next up for him will be Matthew Stevens however, a match that will be far from straightforward.
For the third time in as many tournaments this season, Fergal O’Brien has been on the wrong end of a 5-4 scoreline as he has crashed out of the tournament against Chinese world number 59 Liu Song.
It was a high quality match containing seven breaks over 50 and having fought back from 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3 down to force a decider, you just got the feeling that it might have been Fergal’s day as Liu struggled to get over the line. Credit to the man from China however as having lost the vast majority of his matches over the last year or so, he managed to hang on and progress into the last 16.
Another notable result was the victory for David Gray against 2008 Wembley finalist Stephen Lee today. David has endured a tough time recently, both on and off the table but this is his best win for quite some time and earns him a tie with close friend Jimmy White who managed to overcome Ian McCulloch.
Finally there were also good wins for Barry Pinches and Joe Jogia against top 32 players Jamie Cope and Jow Swail respectively. Cope had been one of the players I had expected to do well this week but it was not to be…
Round Two results from Global Snooker:
Barry Hawkins 1-5 Ben Woollaston
55(31)-61, 75(30)-17, 25-97(84), 4-71, 56-64(64), 36-71(44)
Fergal O’Brien 4-5 Liu Song
53(44)-72(72), 10-67(52), 82(82)-23, 61-48, 30-108(35,50), 61(32)-15, 66(66)-73(73), 60(60)-1, 18-56
Gerard Greene 3-5 Martin Gould
0-78(78), 74(71)-10, 63-73, 70(43)-42, 0-65(60), 60(39)-49(38), 30-75(61), 41-74
Michael Holt 5-3 Michael White
80(54)-30, 4-80(80), 70(64)-72(45), 70(70)-0, 67(58)-74(67)(rsb), 75(44)-20, 69-62(51)(rsb), 69(39)-19
Stephen Lee 3-5 David Gray
0-80(76), 75(50)-24, 71(51)-44, 27-55, 0-79(47), 82(53)-41, 5-107(63), 6-74(59)
Ian McCulloch 3-5 Jimmy White
67(60)-25, 9-79(49), 7-66(35), 2-51, 76(63)-0, 13-91(81), 70(47)-7, 26-66(53)
Rory McLeod 5-0 Daniel Wells
84(84)-1, 94(43,33)-24, 105(38,38)-0, 68(42)-17, 88(46)-0