The 2022 Welsh Open qualifiers continue and here is the WST report on day 3:

Day Secures Welsh Open Spot

Welshman Ryan Day booked his place in the final stages of this year’s BetVictor Welsh Open after putting on a fine display of break building to beat China’s Chang Bingyu 4-2.

Day now joins compatriots Matthew Stevens, Jak Jones, Jamie Clarke and Andrew Pagett in qualifying for their home event. However, fellow Welshmen Lee Walker and Jackson Page have fallen at the first hurdle. Duane Jones also lost his clash with Ashley Carty 4-2 this afternoon.

Day took the opener with a break of 134, before losing the following two to trail 2-1. However, further contributions of 51 and 116 helped the three-time ranking event winner to three frames in a row which saw him win 4-2.

Ali Carter earned his place in Newport with a 4-2 defeat of Lei Peifan. The Captain made the quarter-finals 12 months ago, before being forced to withdraw and hand Ronnie O’Sullivan a bye due to suffering from migraines.

Graeme Dott edged out Steven Hallworth 4-3 to secure a trip to Newport. Iran’s Soheil Vahedi eased to a 4-1 win over 12-time women’s World Champion Reanne Evans.

Yuan Sijun whitewashed Fraser Patrick 4-0, while Zak Surety defeated Barry Pinches 4-2 and Hammad Miah defeated Ross Muir 4-2.

I swapped a bit between the Day-Chang and the Carter-Lei matches. Day played ok, scored well in patches but the match score could easily have been closer. Carter was certainly beatable. Other than in the first frame he failed to build any telling break all match. In both cases, their young Chinese opponent left them off the hook. There is no questioning their abilities, but, in Lei’s case in particular, their shot selection surprised me. Trailing 3-2, Lei had an opportunity to force a decider. The balls were nicely open, except for one red that was in a awkward place, near but not very near to the side cushion, on the rigth side as we look , between the middle and top pockets. It was awkward as I said, even for a right-handed player like Lei, and all the more so because Lei isn’t very tall. He could have opted to take all the other reds, with high value colours, to make the score close, and then play safe off that last red. Instead, he tried to move that red on nearly every shot, unsuccessfully, running more and more out of position with every attempt. Eventually, he did move it, from the yellow, bringing it closer to the top pocket. But from where he left the white, the only shot on offer was a thin cut, requiring a full stretch even with the mini butt on his cue. Of course he missed … leaving frame and match at Carter’s mercy. I’m certainly not a proper snooker player so I probably miss something here  … thoughts?

The less said about the Reanne Evans v Soheil Vahedi match, the better. That was painful. Both are under huge pressure and looked clearly extremely stressed.