Apologies for the lack of updates so far concerning this weekend’s ongoing PTC event at the Academy in Sheffield, ultimately with the information coming out of the venue being so limited due to the failure of the new livescoring system I have decided to update the rankings later today when the results are out in full.
As for the action on the table, it has so far been a strong weekend from Welshman Matthew Stevens who with wins over Stephen Hendry, Jimmy White and Shaun Murphy is through to a tie with compatriot Dominic Dale…
Other players who have so far managed to maintain their recent strong form include Neil Robertson and Mark Williams, the former having beaten Graeme Dott for the umpteenth time this year whilst Mark ended the run of Liang Wenbo to keep his bid for a top four place on track.
Mark will next play Patrick Wallace who yesterday recorded a shock 4-2 victory over Jamie Cope to get some valuable ranking points on the board after what has been a low key start to the new season for the man from Northern Ireland.
Also in the hunt for this title are Ricky Walden and Marco Fu, the latter having ended the run of Belgian prodigy Luca Brecel, whilst Martin Gould is continuing his climb up the rankings with strong weekend.
Who are the big names who have crashed out? As mentioned above, Stephen Hendry was able to take just one frame against Matthew Stevens whilst Mark Selby surprisingly lost 4-0 against Andrew Higginson who now has another tough tie against world champion Neil Robertson.
Ali Carter might have won the Shanghai Masters but he could do nothing against Mark Davis in the opening round yesterday morning, Mark now inside my provisional top 16 and bidding to make that breakthrough for the first time in his career following the next seedings revision.
Stephen Maguire too was sent packing in the first round, although not many would have expected him to lose out to India’s Aditya Mehta without even winning a frame. Another man not winning a frame was Ronnie O’Sullivan, although as he withdrew from the tournament that was not such a surprise, Dermot McGlinchley getting a walkover through to round two.