Click to view the draw…
After yesterday’s run of relatively predictable results, the qualifiers at the Academy caught fire today as with 11 of the day’s 16 matches completed, six unseeded players are through to the third round, four following deciding frames…
Update: In the pick of the evening matches, talented youngster Liam Highfield recorded a fine 5-3 victory over Jimmy White, making a fine break of 138 in the process. Jimmy can’t have been at his best having attended the funeral of Alex Higgins yesterday but nevertheless it must have been a special win for Liam…
Having performed so well last season to move up inside the top 64 for the first time, Matt Selt might have hoped for a few easier ties early on in ranking event tournaments but the experienced Alfie Burden was never going to be that having dispensed with Reanne Evans so clinically yesterday. On paper this was for me one of the most difficult matches of the day to predict and so it proved to the end, the pair never being more than a frame apart throughout the entire match. Ultimately however it was to be a two frame burst from Alfie from 3-2 down to lead 4-3 what proved crucial, before a break of 82 in frame nine secured his passage into the next round and another fascinating tie with the in-form Marcus Campbell.
Other qualifiers to be successful today included ranking event debutants Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon and Igor Figureido who triumphed against Mark Joyce and David Gilbert respectively, two players who are far from easy draws. What makes Igor’s win all the more impressive is the fact that he was actually docked the first frame of the match having arrived late, only to react in the best possible way by taking the next three frames to lead 3-1! David did fight back to level at 3-3 but was never to lead again and eventually lost a scrappy decider.
Also through to the third round are SightRightUK duo Barry Pinches and Matt Couch, although their respective matches today could not have been more contrasting! For Matt it was a short day at the office as he made breaks of 105, 66 and 52 on his way to an impressive whitewash of talented Belgian player Bjorn Haneveer. Barry on the other hand found himself 4-1 down against the up and coming Anthony McGill and looked all set to start his season with his defeat.
Barry is however in strong form as evidenced by his recent run to the final of the second event of the new PTC and used his vast experience to take the next four frames and with it a 5-4 victory. Next up for Barry will be a tie with Rod Lawler, elevated to the top 48 seeds for this tournament following the suspension of John Higgins.
Photo courtesy of Janie Watkins
Elsewhere it was better news for another Scot, James McBain who continued his good form this week with a 5-4 victory over the seeded Jimmy Robertson, while Zhang Anda recorded a 5-1 victory over Welshman Paul Davies as he looks to prove that his run to the Crucible last season was not a flash in the pan.
For the results in full please click here.
Loading tweets...
4 comments
Nico says:
August 3, 2010 at 10:12 pm (UTC 0 )
DEEP THANKS to Janie Watkins for the scores updates throughout the day on Global Snooker!
Matt, Liu Song has won a match now, and should earn 910 ranking points thus… Do you know if he’s gonna get them, i.e. is he becoming a real Main Tour player now, at least for this first part of the season (till the 1st ranking revision)? And what’s gonna happen to him if John Higgins (hopefully) comes back afterwards, for the rest of the season? I’m really wondering…
Finally, a little thing to fix for you: Igor’s name is Figueiredo, not Figureido (his link on your Draw points to a 404 page thus).
Thanks again for your quality articles!
Cheers, Nico.
matt2745 says:
August 3, 2010 at 10:18 pm (UTC 0 )
Thanks for the typo spot Nico, I knew I’d be getting that one wrong.
Re: Liu Song I honestly don’t know, I’m just going to wait and see how they update the rankings after the next PTC event
One thing though, Janie doesn’t work for Global now but remains heavily involved with snooker as you would expect and is responsible for the Tony Drago article on here.
Shawerr says:
August 4, 2010 at 6:28 pm (UTC 0 )
Is James McBain supposed to be Janie Watkins? Why is that name under James’ photo?
matt2745 says:
August 4, 2010 at 8:09 pm (UTC 0 )
Janie took the photo
I see the confusion though, will amend it.