Saturday morning saw Reanne Evans play the first match of her professional career but it was not to have a fairytale ending as former Crucible qualifier Liu Chuang recorded a 4-2 victory against her. Elsewhere the majority of the matches played so far have gone as I would have expected…
It was not to be the highest quality match of the day, a break of 50 from Reanne being the highest from their tussle but locked a 2-2 it looked as though Evans and Lii Chuang might have been heading towards a deciding frame. From there however it was to be the Chinese youngster who proved just about the stronger, taking the fifth frame to lead 3-2 before edging a scrappy sixth by three points to book his place in the second round.
Of the bigger names, Shaun Murphy managed to win his hotly anticipated match with Peter Ebdon by the same 4-2 scoreline while Mark Selby put on a scoring show against Rod Lawler to whitewash the tour veteran by four frames to nil. Event one winner Mark Williams though narrowly avoided a round one exit, coming through 4-3 against Nottingham’s Michael Holt to also move into round two.
Elsewhere, Mike Dunn managed to repeat his World Championship victory against Robert Milkins with a 4-0 victory while Mark Joyce beat the higher ranked Anthony Hamilton to keep himself in the tournament.
With over half of the first round still to be played, let alone rounds 2 and 3, there is a long day of snooker ahead yet…