Day 3 in Glasgow saw the Scottish Open 2019 last 64 round played to a completion.

Anthony McGill, Ali Carter, Gary Wilson, Ryan Day, Stephen Maguire and Yan Bingtao were the top seeds who were beaten yesterday. Maguire though had admitted that he felt hard ro get motivated in this event after reaching the final in York.

Other results of note (for me anyway) are the wins of Kurt Maflin over Matthew Stevens, and of James Wattana over Alan McManus.

Here is the report by Worldsnooker:

Wednesday 11 Dec 2019 10:52PM

O’Sullivan’s Sprint Finish

Ronnie O’Sullivan produced a blistering display to beat James Cahill 4-0 in their second round meeting at the 19.com Scottish Open in Glasgow.

Astonishingly the win took the Rocket only 32-minutes to complete. He averaged a rapid 12.8 seconds a shot during the tie.

It was a lightening-quick dose of revenge for 44-year-old O’Sullivan, who was knocked out of the World Championship by Cahill back in May, while the Blackpool potter was still an amateur.

Today he made breaks of 93,111 and 86 as he stormed to victory. Next up O’Sullivan plays Martin Gould.

O’Sullivan said: “I feel like I am cueing as well as I have done for years. I’m just enjoying how I am playing and I’m just enjoying hitting balls. It didn’t seem like I was playing at 12 seconds a shot. I thought I was playing slower. I came out and tried to play a bit more conservatively as I have been a bit too attacking.”

Higgins Eases Through

John Higgins produced a strong showing to defeat Switzerland’s Alexander Ursenbacher 4-1 and progress to the last 32.

Scotland’s four-time World Champion is still aiming to get his name on the Stephen Hendry Trophy for a first time, but has already enjoyed success in this event having reached the final in 2016 and made a 147 break here last year.

He notched up a momentous 775^th career century break with a run of 123 during today’s win. That brings him level with Hendry in second position on the all-time century list, trailing only Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Higgins said: “Any time you can equal something Stephen Hendry has done is a good achievement. I’m proud of that. He is a big hero of mine.”

Trump Trounces Yuan

World Champion Judd Trump secured his place in round three with a comprehensive 4-0 defeat of Chinese teenager Yuan Sijun.

The Ace in the Pack is yet to drop a frame this week, having also whitewashed Morocco’s Amine Amiri in the opening round.

Round Up

Shaun Murphy took just 51 minutes to beat Mark Davis 4-0. The Magician made breaks of 65, 60, 55 and 89 on his way to the win.

UK Champion Ding Junhui whitewashed his Chinese compatriot Mei Xiwen 4-0 to book his place in the third round, while Mark Selby defeated Alfie Burden 4-1 to progress.

You will find everything about Ronnie’s win here. He played really well and took a much more professional approach to the match.

Yuan Sijuan will be disappointed whith his display yesterday; he is better than that. He had chances. Judd Trump played well, not outstanding, but, again, he didn’t need to.

Ding Junhui continued to show the form that made him a UK Champion for the third time last week. His opponent, Mei Xiwen can play much better but didn’t find anything yesterday. Knowing that any mistake was likely to be punished mercilessly probably put him under too much pressure, as did the fav-ct that he was playing the Natinal hero. In the studio, Ding was relaxed and happy and long may it continue!

Ronnie played extremely well in beating James Cahill by 4-0 in the last 64 round of the 2019 Scottish Open. The whole match lasted only just over 32 minutes.

Ronnie had a 97% pot success and missed only one ball of significance. He looked totally focussed at the table, and played all the right shots. This was a very different match from what we had seen yesterday.

This is the report by Worldsnooker:

O’Sullivan’s Sprint Finish

Ronnie O’Sullivan produced a blistering display to beat James Cahill 4-0 in their second round meeting at the 19.com Scottish Open in Glasgow.

Astonishingly the win took the Rocket only 32-minutes to complete. He averaged a rapid 12.8 seconds a shot during the tie.

It was a lightening-quick dose of revenge for 44-year-old O’Sullivan, who was knocked out of the World Championship by Cahill back in May, while the Blackpool potter was still an amateur.

Today he made breaks of 93,111 and 86 as he stormed to victory. Next up O’Sullivan plays Martin Gould.

O’Sullivan said: “I feel like I am cueing as well as I have done for years. I’m just enjoying how I am playing and I’m just enjoying hitting balls. It didn’t seem like I was playing at 12 seconds a shot. I thought I was playing slower. I came out and tried to play a bit more conservatively as I have been a bit too attacking.”

Tai Chegzhe was on the ball again! Thank you Tai for these great images.

 

Coverage

ES Preview of the evening session with Ronnie’s interview about his career and approach

ES Review of the match, with Ronnie post match interview

There was a lot of criticism on social media for the way Ronnie wanted to “greet the referee at the start of the match. Personally I didn’t see any disrespect in it, they shook hands afterwards anyway. The referee clearly was a bit surprised and it was a bit awkward but, Ronnie did the same at the end of the match and this time, the ref just took it with a smile. To me it’s all about to make things a bit less formal and serious, and why not? It doesn’t harm anyone and Ronnie was dead serious and all business at the table until the match was well and truly won.

Ronnie will now play Martin Gould this afternoon, and, should he win, possibly Joe Perry next.

This is the report by Worldsnooker about yesterday’s action in Glasgow:

Tuesday 10 Dec 2019 11:50PM

Ding On A Roll

Ding Junhui carried the momentum from his stunning UK Championship win in York on Sunday to Glasgow, as he swept past Michael White 4-1 in the opening round of the 19.com Scottish Open.

Chinese number one Ding, who now has 14 ranking titles to his name, dramatically returned to the big time by claiming the title in his adopted home county of Yorkshire. He compiled four centuries while defeating Stephen Maguire in the final 10-6 to become UK Champion.

That win ended a two-year ranking title drought for Ding and was his first Triple Crown silverware since the 2011 Masters.

This afternoon it was White who started fastest, composing a break of 76 to take the opener. However, from there Ding took complete control of the tie. He fired in breaks of 60, 104, 83 and 118 to romp to a comprehensive victory. He will now face compatriot Mei Xiwen in the second round.

Ding said: “It was a good win. Last week I did well and the confidence is still building up. There wasn’t much pressure today. Maybe just travelling up and playing again so quickly. I’m looking forward to the next round.

“The confidence was totally lost and my practice routines were totally wrong. I was just hitting balls and there was no target. That made my game weak. That was why I haven’t done well over the past two seasons.

“Things are looking good now and starting to get better. I need to keep this up and keep going.”

Rocket Downs the Spaceman

Ronnie O’Sullivan recovered from 3-1 down to beat Dominic Dale 4-3 and set up an intriguing second round clash with James Cahill.

It will be the first meeting between O’Sullivan and Cahill since the World Championship back in May. On that occasion Cahill, playing as an amateur, defeated five-time Crucible king O’Sullivan 10-8 in one of snooker’s greatest ever shocks.

Today Welshman Dale pushed O’Sullivan onto the back foot in the early stages, claiming the opening two frames. O’Sullivan then responded with a break of 81 to make it 2-1.

The 36-time ranking event winner had then looked set to restore parity, before trying to power in a final black to the left middle. He missed the pot and caused the white to fly from the table, handing Dale the frame and trail 3-1.

It was at that point that 44-year-old O’Sullivan burst into life. Runs of 64, 80 and 83 saw him take three on the bounce to win 4-3 and progress.

Maguire Struggling For Fire

Stephen Maguire admitted to struggling for motivation following his run to last week’s UK Championship final, but still managed to secure a 4-0 win over Jimmy White.

The Scot rounded off victory with a break of 92 this evening. That sets up a last 64 clash with Marco Fu.

“I’ve come down from a big high on Sunday,” said Maguire. “It was quite hard to get excited about that match there. Maybe if I can win a couple of games here and get the blood flowing then I can get up for it.

“I’m definitely not getting my hopes up. I get too nervous here with it being my home event. There are good nerves and bad nerves, but these are bad ones.”

Round Up

World Champion Judd Trump wasted little time in dispatching Morocco’s Amine Amiri 4-0. The world number one required just 49 minutes to complete the whitewash win and will face Yuan Sijun next.

Scotland’s former Masters winner Alan McManus secured a fine 4-1 win over young Chinese star Zhao Xintong to set up a last 64 meeting with Thai legend James Wattana.

Jack Lisowski beat Zhang Anda 4-1 to progress to the second round, while former UK and Masters Matthew Stevens ousted 2015 World Champion Stuart Bingham 4-2.

Kyren Wilson came from 3-2 down against Iran’s Hossein Vafaei to emerge a narrow 4-3 victor.

Ding played really well and looked genuinely happy after the match. That’s great to see.

Ronnie’s match was bizarre and you can read all about it here.

Judd Trump didn’t play particularly well but didn’t need to. It’s sometimes difficult for the top players to keep their full concentration when their opponent is clearly well below their level.  The commentators were stressing the fact that Amine Amiri has potential, but his game is nowhere good enough to play at professional level. His shot selection wasn’t righ. They said that he would hugely benefit from playing in an academy under the mentoring of an experienced player. Nigel Bond or Mike Dunn would probably be perfect for such role. But that supposes that the young man can afford to live in the UK in the first place. I said this before, but it doesnt harm to say it again., To me, nominees like Amine should not be given a two years card right away because, clearly,  they are not ready and, surely, someone like Jason Ferguson knows that. They should instead be offered a one year scholarship and free entries in the Challenge tour with a commitment to play in at least half of them. Then, depending on their progress and results, they could be offered a two years tour card. Amine, at least, is trying his best. He’s entering events when he can… contrary to others who take their tour card and never show up.

Stuart Bingham was defeated by the resurgent Matthew Stevens and, as a result, was subjected to awful abuse on social media, seemingly by people who had a bet on him to win and were bitter. This is the message from me to all the persons who bet: taking a bet is taking a risk, you know it, so don’t complain when you lose. Nobody is forced to bet and sportspersons are not robots. And before you bet, think about this: how come that so many betting firms flourish and prosper? The answer is very simple: globally people who bet lose much, much more money than they win. That how they the betting business makes those huge profits. If you want to feed them your money, it’s your choice – although you may have people around you who are made to suffer because of that – but in any case don’t cry and don’t abuse others for it. It’s YOUR choice and YOUR responsibility.

But it wasn’t straightforward and, to be honnest, very strange at times…

Here are the scores:

Before the match, Jimmy White in the ES studio had said that Ronnie, when coming back to York to do punditry hadn’t taken his cue with him and therefore hadn’t practiced at all. He was not sure how Ronnie would play…

In the first frame Ronnie didn’t pot a ball, despite getting a number of occasions from distance. He was going for everything, attempted long pots and missed them all. In the second frame, he managed to get in, but made only 43 from it. He missed a pink in a top corner pocket. I may have had a kick going by the sound of the contact. In the third he managed a break of 80 to reduce his deficit to 2-1, but that 80 could easily have been a century, if Ronnie hadn’t decided to play a shot before the referee, Alex Crisan, was able to respot the previous colour. Ronnie was behind in the next, stringed some very difficult shots together to comeback, and, needing the last black to win the frame, elected to play it so hard that it jumped off the table… As a result he found himself 3-1 behind. It was really hard to watch!

And, then, all of a sudden, he refocused – maybe angry at himself – and started to play really well. The long ones started to get in, the break building was excellent, the positional play accurate… and he won three on the bounce, and the match.

Later, in the studio, he admitted that he had come to the tournament without practicing since his defeat in York, but stated that he enjoyed the match and felt good in his game. He also explained why he had played the black the way he had in frame four, but I’m not sure I got it… it was something about a banana 🍌

Anyway … here it is:

and some great photos by Tai Chengzhe – thank you Tai!

And the report by Worldsnooker:

Rocket Downs the Spaceman

Ronnie O’Sullivan recovered from 3-1 down to beat Dominic Dale 4-3 and set up an intriguing second round clash with James Cahill.

It will be the first meeting between O’Sullivan and Cahill since the World Championship back in May. On that occasion Cahill, playing as an amateur, defeated five-time Crucible king O’Sullivan 10-8 in one of snooker’s greatest ever shocks.

Today Welshman Dale pushed O’Sullivan onto the back foot in the early stages, claiming the opening two frames. O’Sullivan then responded with a break of 81 to make it 2-1.

The 36-time ranking event winner had then looked set to restore parity, before trying to power in a final black to the left middle. He missed the pot and caused the white to fly from the table, handing Dale the frame and trail 3-1.

It was at that point that 44-year-old O’Sullivan burst into life. Runs of 64, 80 and 83 saw him take three on the bounce to win 4-3 and progress.

Here is the afternoon session reviews by ES with both Ding and Ronnie.

Ronnie will now face James Cahill who is a bit of a bogey player for him.

 

This was published by Worldsnooker today:

Tuesday 10 Dec 2019 12:18PM

The draws for the qualifying rounds of the BetVictor European Masters And BetVictor German Masters have now been made.

Click here for the BetVictor European Masters draw

Click here for the BetVictor German Masters draw

Click here for the format for both events

The qualifiers run from December 17 to 22 at the Barnsley Metrodome.

All players will have to win two matches to make it to the final stages of the BetVictor European Masters in Dornbirn, Austria in January. For ticket details click here.

And they also need to win two matches to make it to the famous Tempodrom in Berlin for the BetVictor German Masters (January 29 to February 2) – for ticket details click here

Unsurprisingly, Ronnie hasn’t enter either of those events.

The last ranking event of the decade got underway in Glasgow yesterday. Mark Allen is the defending champion.

Here is the trailer:

Here is the report by Worldsnooker on yesterdays action:

Tuesday 10 Dec 2019 12:17AM

John Higgins defeated Jamie O’Neill 4-1 to progress to the second round of his home event, the 19.com Scottish Open in Glasgow.

Scotland’s four-time World Champion has enjoyed plenty of success in this tournament since its inception in 2016, but is yet to lift the Stephen Hendry Trophy.

Higgins reached the inaugural Scottish Open final, but was defeated by Marco Fu 9-4. In 2017 he bowed out at the semi-final stage against Neil Robertson and last year he fired in the ninth maximum 147 break of his career in a 4-0 win over Gerard Greene.

The Wizard of Wishaw wasn’t at his best this afternoon, failing to register a break over 50. However, he dug deep and still managed to comfortably see off the less experienced world number 110 O’Neill.

From 2-1 up Higgins claimed a scrappy fourth frame, before stealing the fifth on the final black to emerge a 4-1 victor. Next up he will face Switzerland’s Alexander Ursenbacher, who whitewashed Michael Holt 4-0.

Higgins said: “He let me off the hook a few times there. I didn’t play great myself, but a win is a win and I am happy to get through.

“My son was here, with my mum, a couple of mates and my father in law. That is the good thing about being here. You get a few friends and family and they can shout you along.

“I’ve done alright here in the past. Obviously I would love to put my name on that trophy, but it is pretty difficult nowadays.”

Defending champion Mark Allen recovered from 2-0 down to defeat Andy Hicks 4-2 in their opening round encounter.

The Pistol claimed the title here last year after a thrilling 9-7 win over close friend Shaun Murphy in the final. However, despite appearing in five ranking event semi-finals since then, he hasn’t registered any further silverware.

Former Masters winner Allen turned today’s match on its head with breaks of 88, 55 and 64 on his way to four frames on the bounce to secure victory. Next up Allen faces Louis Heathcote.

Graeme Dott produced a blistering display to whitewash Brazil’s Igor Figueiredo 4-0.

Scotland’s 2006 World Champion averaged just under 20 seconds a shot, while compiling breaks of 69, 125, 71 and 137 to wrap up an impressive win.

Dott will now face either Ben Woollaston or Chen Zifan in the second round.

Dott said: “My brother Billy was here and I don’t think he has actually ever seen me play live before. He will probably think the game is unbelievably easy and that I play as well as that all of the time. However, it isn’t normally that straightforward.”

World number 78 John Astley emerged with a shock 4-0 win over three-time ranking event winner Barry Hawkins.

Mark Selby booked his place in the second round courtesy of a hard fought 4-2 defeat of Mark Joyce, while Neil Robertson beat Ken Doherty 4-1 to secure his place in round two.

This report is obviously focussed on the Scottish players.

However the main talking point was an incident that occured during Mark Allen’s match. Here is the account on that by Eurosport:

‘You can’t do that!’ – Controversy at ‘VAR’ decision in Mark Allen win

Technology intervened during Mark Allen’s clash with Andy Hicks at the Scottish Open.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Mark Allen came back from a two-frame deficit to beat Andy Hicks 4-2 at the Scottish Open… but only after there was a bizarre VAR-style incident.

The odd moment occurred midway through the second frame when the Pistol, hampered by the jaws of the middle pocket, feathered the white ball as he attempted to roll the blue to the opposite middle pocket.

Initially, referee Leo Scullion missed the incident but after being prompted by marker Marcel Eckhart, he reviewed the footage before awarding Hicks five penalty points.

Hicks, the world number 143, needed two visits but eventually took the frame. It would be his last.

‘YOU CAN’T DO THAT!’

The Eurosport commentary box insisted Allen was not to blame, with Alan McManus questioning the decision to belatedly award a foul.

Alan McManus: “Mark wouldn’t have felt it but I think he did touch the cue ball.”

Phil Studd: “He inadvertently cued the white before he actually did; there is no way Allen would have known of that because he would be the first to hold his hand up. But in the event he has missed the blue anyway. I think the marker Marcel Eckhart is going to bring that Leo Scullion’s attention.”

Alan McManus (after the referee had reviewed the incident): “It is all after the event, you can’t put the cue ball back to the middle pocket so… you can’t call a foul now because he has played a foul. What are you going to do? Call a foul after a shot has been played? Doesn’t make any sense to me!

“He has effectively played a shot after a foul and then a foul has been retrospectively called. You can’t do that!”

‘I HAD NEVER SEEN THIS BEFORE’

Mark Allen in the Eurosport studio post-match: “I had no idea. Ideally if I had been called on a foul I wanted to leave the cue ball on the jaws.

“I didn’t really know why they had stopped play… I had never seen that happen before but at least the right decision came of it!”

Alan McManus: “The sequence of events went as follows: myself and Phil saw in commentary and then Marcel Eckhart, whose wired up, he heard us mention ‘oh there’s a foul’, so he has then put his hand up and brought it to Leo’s attention, who has come over and then said: ‘oh, there was a foul’ but this was after Mark has missed the blue. So, really he has called a foul retrospectively, which you can’t do.”

Jimmy White: “We are all very proud in out sport that we declare our fouls – very rarely do you see someone pull a stroke or try to cheat. But when you are on a leather pocket sometimes you can touch it without knowing it, you know? Sometimes it feels different.”

Whether it was the right decision, strictly by the rules, I’m not entirely sure, but Mark Alllen wouldn’t have been happy to learn that he had fouled and that the penalty points had not been awarded to his opponent. We all remember how devastated Ronnie was when he found out about the incident against Luo Honghao at the 2018 English Open.

Most top players won, but appeared tired. Mark Allen actually said it in the studio. Having this event right after the UK championship isn’t ideal. The  only top 16 player to fall yesterday was Barry Hawkins who was whitewashed  by John Astley. After the match Barry admitted that he wasn’t enjoying his snooker at the moment and didn’t intend to play in the qualifiers next week. Sounds like burnout to me…