Today saw the start of the qualifiers for the 2012 Haikou World Open and despite a shortened match schedule due to the non-entry of ten eligible professionals, there was still plenty of action to follow in Sheffield…
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- Please note that points earned this week will not appear on the projected seedings list until AFTER the Welsh Open
Of those to make it through to the second qualifying round today, Ireland’s David Morris and China’s Tian Pengfei were to be given the biggest scares before they managed to come through in deciding frames against Adam Wicheard and Stuart Carrington respectively.
For Morris his reward will be a clash against Maltese veteran Tony Drago, who you may remember recovered from 4-1 down with breaks of 86, 74 and 69 to defeat Morris in a decider at the same stage of the 2009 Shanghai Masters qualifiers. Tian meanwhile will face the experienced Adrian Gunnell who will be looking to qualify for his third successive venue.
Joining Morris and Tian in the second round is India’s Aditya Mehta who recorded a 5-3 win against Leeds’ David Grace, who himself came so close to defeating Martin Gould in Munich last week. Next up for Aditya will be a chance to avenge a 4-2 defeat to talented Welsh youngster Michael White at the recent PTC11 event as the two will meet again tomorrow.
There were also victories for the two Sams today as both Baird and Craigie were able to progress, at the expense of Luca Brecel and Daniel Wells respectively. While both would have been expected to have won those matches, it will be interesting to see how they fare against Liu Chuang and Barry Pinches tomorrow.
The evening session meanwhile saw Yu Delu emerge victorious in the all-Chinese affair between himself and Cao Yupeng, while Dechawat Poomjaeng ensured that it would be two Asian players through in a short period of time as he saw off Wales’ Andrew Pagett. Finally there were wins for Andrew Norman and Adam Duffy, Adam rounding off the day’s play with his 5-2 victory against Lucky Vatnani to set up a tie with James Wattana tomorrow.