Global Snooker
The season starts here. Well, sort of anyway, and unsurprisingly it has so far been experience that has won out over youth with five matches still to complete at the time of writing…
One newcomer to buck the trend however was Scottish youngster Anthony McGill who has followed up his impressive run during the PTC recently with a narrow 5-4 win over Thailand’s Issara Kachaiwong today. Anthony made a strong start with a break of 104 during the opening frame before Issara hit back to move just one away from victory at 4-3. McGill though levelled with 89 before taking a scrappy decider to book a second round tie with Barry Pinches.
Elsewhere however it was generally a case of the more experienced players coming through, notably Joe Jogia who was a 5-0 winner over another Thai, Noppon Saengkham, whilst Patrick Wallace dropped just one frame against Adam Wicheard.
Global Snooker
It was not a good debut either for ladies number one Reanne Evans who took just one frame off Alfie Burden who returned to the tour with a bang. I expect Alfie to do well this season and will be watching with interest to see how he matches up against one of the stars of last season’s round one matches, Matt Selt.
The battle of the youngsters meanwhile was won by Zhang Anda against Welshman Jak Jones following a predictably close encounter that went the full nine frames. As described during my pre-tournament preview on Saturday I felt that this was one of the more interesting round one matches scheduled this week and it proved to be the case as the momentum swung one way and then the other.
Early on it was Zhang who made the running to lead 3-1 at the interval before Jak countered with three frames of his own to lead 4-3. Like McGill earlier however it was Zhang who came through when it mattered, taking the last two frames to set up a tie with Paul Davies.
Five matches are still in progress however and you can follow the latest scores over at Global Snooker.
My draw sheet has been updated at the moment and will be done so fully at the close of play today. The rankings meanwhile will be updated following the conclusion of the qualifiers on Thursday, unless I get the time to do so sooner.