Day 3 in Daqing saw the last 32 round played to a conclusion, in front of … nearly nobody. Daqing is a rather remote place North of China and the sponsors rely mainly on television channels and streaming for audience. Still this is a big venue and it was almost empty all day, with no atmosphere, which doesn’t look good on television and, more importantly, is not great for the players. Clearly early exits from both Ronnie and Ding are a bad blow for the organisers.

What happened today on the baize? Well, it was a rather mixed bag for the higher ranked players: Ryan Day, Joe Perry, Stephen Maguire, Ricky Walden, Luca Brecel and Kyren Wilson lost today, whilst Mark Selby, Neil Robertson, Shaun Murphy, Ali Carter, Judd Trump, Mark Williams, Mark Allen, Liang Wenbo and John Higgins progressed.

Kyren Wilson lost in the deciding frame to Martin Gould, but made his first competitive 147 in the 10th frame of the match. It’s a great feat but I’m not sure it helped him under the circumstances. Playing a decider, with all the focus and concentration is requires, right after scoring a 147, never mind a first one, certainly is a tough call for anybody.  Whatever … here it is:

Mark Selby, Mark Allen, Neil Robertson and Liang Wenbo all had to work very hard for their wins.

Mark Selby was pegged back to 4-4 from 4-1 up by Tom Ford, before winning the last two frames. Mark didn’t play particularly well, for what I was able to watch, but nobody is more apt at winning when not playing great. He did it again. Tom had 5 breaks over 50, for only 2 for Mark, but Tom never was the best under pressure on the main table and Mark took full advantage.

Neil Robertson trailed Matt Selt 3-0 and 5-2 but managed to win the last 4 frames. Neil had 3 centuries in this match too: 101 (fr4), 129 (fr8) and 117 (fr9). Again, what separated the top player, Neil, from the good player, Matt, was the ability to perform under pressure.

The battle between Mark Allen and Mark King went to a deciding frame and they scored 11 breaks over 50 between them. It’s a shame that this match wasn’t on television.

Liang Wenbo surged to a 4-0 lead before having to stifle a gutsy comeback from Li Hang. Of course those two were both part of the Grove stable in the past and, surely, know each other and each other game inside-out. Li Hang was never going to be intimidated.

And what about the young giant killers, Yan Bingtao and Oliver Lines?

Well … Yan won his match, beating Ricky Walden by 6-4 on an outside table, whilst Oliver lost to Robert Milkins by the same score.

Yan started very strongly, leading 3-0 and 5-1 before losing his way a bit. Just like yesterday in fact. The difference though was that Ricky, contrary to Ronnie, was able to find his game and won three frames on the bounce before Yan regrouped and finished the job.

Oliver story was the exact opposite. He went 5-0 down before hitting back, winning 4 frames on the trot. But he had left himself too much to do, and Robert took frame 10 for the match.

All detailed results are on Cuetracker

Day 2 in Daqing was more eventful than the first one, with both Ronnie and Ding crashing out. Those two are the Chinese crowds favourites and I’m not sure that the sponsors feel really happy tonight, but it is what it is.

Ronnie’s defeat is covered here

Ding went down by 6-4 to Oliver Lines and, although the scoreline looks a bit more honourable, he played worse than Ronnie IMO. He had loads of occasions as neither player were able to finish frames in one visit for most of the match. As a comparison, Ronnie and Yan had 6 breaks over 50 in the seven frames they played, Ding and Oliver had 3 in 10 frames. That said Oliver deserves a lot of credit for this win, in particular for being able to up his game with the winning line in sight. Only too often lower ranked players “freeze” at that stage, as if overwhelmed by the enormity of what they could achieve. Oli won the last three frames of the match and made his only two big breaks precisely in those frames.

Speaking of lower ranked players “choking”, this is exactly what happened in the Mark Selby v Cao Yupeng match, in my opinion. The match was close and both players scored big breaks during the first seven frames, Cao leading 4-3 at this stage. Mark then won the next three to take the match. It’s not that he upped his game – both were struggling to make any telling break at that stage –  but he stayed calm and made fewer mistakes than his opponent whose game disintegrated.

I haven’t seen anything of the Shaun Murphy v Mei Xi Wen match, so it’s hard to figure out what happened there, but Mei lead 3-0 and had 6 breaks over 50, for 3 to Murphy, and still lost.

Liang Wenbo as well had to battle hard, as he needed to win the last two frames to overcome Lee Walker in a decider. And Mark Williams led Yu Delu 5-1, but was pegged back to 5-4 before eventually finishing a 6-4 winner.

Other big names going out were Barry Hawkins and Anthony McGill, both soundly beaten 6-2 by Jack Lisowski and Mark Joyce respectively.

So it wasn’t all plain sailing for the top boys….

But the most unfortunate player was Hossein Vafaei whose flight was delayed so much that he never arrived in time to play his match.

Ronnie made an early exit at the International Championship 2017, in Daqing as he was beaten, and well beaten, by Yan Bingtao in the last 64.

Ronnie made a century in the only frame he won but otherwise was very far from the form he showed in the English Open earlier this month: his long potting was almost inexistent and, simply, he made too many mistakes. Not that his opponent needed a lot of occasions: Yan played extremely well, he was almost flawless amongst the balls and his long game was excellent too. He deserved the win fully.

Here is the match:

Inevitably, when it’s about Ronnie, there were suggestions that he wasn’t interested, that,  having taken his sponsor’s money he was in a hurry to go home. Some even hinted that this is how he usually plays in China. Those allegations are both untrue and unfair. First, in the two last previous tournaments he played in China, he made the final and a QF where he lost to the eventual winner. In this match, in the first frame, he came back to the table in frame 1, needing three snookers to tie, four to win, and he sustained a long battle trying to get them. He was just having a bad day in office, it happens to all of them. And, without making excuses, staying awake on twitter until past 3:30 am worrying about whether he would be allowed to play surely didn’t help. Eventually this morning, a Chinese doctor stated that his ankle injury was far from healed and he got permission to play in his black trainers again… nevermind. Mainly, Yan deserves every credit for his win. He played a great match and I now hope that he goes deep in the event. Good luck Yan.

Here a few pictures, courtesy of Tai Chengzhe, thanks Tai.

And here is the report on Worldsnooker (excerpt):

Monday 30 Oct 2017 03:45PM

Ronnie O’Sullivan failed to pot a ball in the last four frames as he was beaten 6-1 by 17-year-old Chinese prodigy Yan Bingtao at the OPPO International Championship.

Yan won the Rookie of the Year Award last season and the gifted teenager has continued his progress this term, climbing to 53rd in the world. And this is surely his best result yet as he swept aside five-time World Champion O’Sullivan.

Breaks of 68 and 89 gave Yan the first two frames then his opponent pulled one back with a run of 111. O’Sullivan scored just five points in the last four frames – and those came from a foul from Yan.  Breaks of 91, 52 and 73 helped Yan set up a last 32 meeting with Ricky Walden.

“My opponent is a great player,” said Yan, who last season became the first pro player born in the year 2000. “I played Ronnie once before and lost but it was a decent match so that gave me the feeling that I would have a chance if I played well today. I performed better than I thought I would.

“I think I can beat anyone, but I need to be calm and mature. I learned a lot from my first year as a pro, and I need to be in control and to be consistent. I might beat a top 16 player and then lose the next match playing like different person.”

O’Sullivan, who won the English Open just eight days ago, said: “Yan played fantastically well. Maybe only Stephen Hendry and John Higgins have played that well against me before. I played well in Barnsley and I feel comfortable with my game, I just got outplayed today. I didn’t do that much wrong apart from missing a couple of balls. The run of the ball didn’t go in my favour but Yan deserved the bit of fortune he got and he scored heavily. It was a tough draw for me, especially as he’d already played a match yesterday.

“If Yan plays like that he’ll be very difficult to beat in this tournament. If he can play like that consistently he’ll win a lot of tournaments. He has a an all round game, a good temperament and he carries himself well. He has presence around the table – to be a champion you need to portray that image. All the great players won tournaments when they were 17 or 18 so if he’s going to be a great player then he’ll win one soon.”

O’Sullivan was allowed to wear trainers – as he was at the English Open – due to an ankle injury, and added: “My foot is ok, I feel comfortable in these trainers, so I’ve no excuses.”

As you can read, Ronnie was very gracious in defeat.

He wasn’t the only casualty on the day though and I doubt that the tournament sponsors will have a party tonight … but that’s for another post.

Day 1 in Daqing saw all held-over matches being played as well as half of the last 64 matches. There weren’t many surprises. Probably the most surprising result was Robin Hull beating Zhou Yuelong by 6-2, especially considering how poor Robin’s form has been in recent weeks. But then, there were posts on social media reporting that Zhou has recently lost his father. This was retweeted by Matt Huart, so it is likely reliable news and it would explain both his poor result today and his withdrawal from the English Open less than two weeks ago.

All details results are on Cuetracker

Ronnie was on twitter this evening, unhappy because he was told that if he doesn’t wear regular shoes he would be disqualified from the tournament. Apparently he should have asked to be allowed to wear his trainers again before the tournament. I can only suppose that he took it for granted given that a bad sprain doesn’t heal very quickly, that it’s only last week that he was allowed to wear them and that the matches here are brest of 11, so could easily last for three hours or more. Hopefully common sense will prevail and a solution is found. Ronnie stated clearly that he does not want to pull out. That said he was on twitter at something like past 3 am in China and surely that’s not the ideal preparation for tomorrow’s match, even if he’s scheduled to play in the evening session.

Other than that he was due to do some work tonight for his sponsor, Superstar Online.

Going by (automatic translation of) posts on weibo, Ronnie was supposed to chat with fans via the sponsor’s online app, answering their questions, playing games and giving them the opportunity to win prizes.

As usual in China, on the day before things start in earnest, players are made very welcome with an opening ceremony and a launch dinner. They meet the press as well. Meanwhile the fitters make sure everything is ready at the venue.

Here are some images shared by Worldsnooker and fans on twitter and weibo.

A sand artist was performing his work at the openig ceremony, and he really impressed David Grace who is an artist himself (David draws and paints really well)

Worlsnooker also shared a short video, touring around the venue