Today saw the top 16 enter the fray in Shanghai and it was an eventful day as Mark Davis and Graeme Dott were amongst those who moved into the second round…
Click here to view my updated rankings or carry on reading to read my main thoughts on some of the day’s results…
Today’s results:
Ryan Day 3-5 Andrew Higginson
27-84(59), 7-95, 30-66, 71(62)-21, 81(54)-0, 80(80)-39, 7-68, 22-76
Marco Fu 4-5 Mark Davis
0-85(85), 75-15, 14-68, 46-63, 98(63)-32, 63-21, 107(101)-28, 1-108(59), 0-105(105)
Stephen Maguire 5-3 Judd Trump
73(67)-34, 0-135(135), 82(53)-49, 87(87)-0, 54-42, 0-88(88), 0-103(102), 81(61)-4
Mark Williams 5-3 Ricky Walden
38-67, 19-66(66), 95(91)-1, 53, 54, 71-24, 72(72)-47, 67-31, 98(82)-18
Graeme Dott 5-4 Ken Doherty
67(54)-23, 84(69)-0, 63(63)-65, 68-26, 1-88(88), 51-59, 78-0, 34-98(86), 91(70)-0
Mark Allen 2-5 Stuart Bingham
0-142(142), 31-78(58), 69(53)-25, 65-35, 9-69(59), 9-65(65), 31-75(59)
Liang Wenbo 3-5 Matthew Stevens
21-71(57), 16-80, 43-59, 1-68(67), 88(73)-0, 70-14, 69-45, 43-63
- The day’s two biggest results were the defeats of Liang Wenbo and Ryan Day at the hands of Matthew Stevens and Andrew Higginson respectively. Neither player has started the season too well and both already out of the World Open, are now all but certain to lose their top 16 places at October’s next revision.
- On the flip side however, this does mean that there are now two top 16 places up for grabs and at this stage it would seem likely that it will be two from Matthew Stevens, Jamie Cope, Peter Ebdon and Stephen Lee who will move up. Of those, Matthew has made a strong start to the season, his defeat of Liang earlier the latest victory as he bids to finally reclaim a place among the game’s elite. Each of those four are well in contention however.
- Despite his indifferent form recently, Ronnie O’Sullivan is by many still perceived as the best player in the world but intriguingly enough, victories for Stephen Maguire and Mark Williams today mean that those two now move above O’Sullivan in the rankings, bumping the former world number one down to seventh on the latest list. With Ding Junhui still to play this week, he could drop as far as eighth although with a near 5,000 point gap separating himself and 9th placed Mark Selby, it is unlikely that he will lose his top eight place in the near future, ensuring that he will continue to avoid his fellow top 8 players until the quarter-final stages of ranking tournaments.
More to follow on tomorrow’s matches when hopefully I will be home from work a little earlier!