Yesterday was another good day overall for the Welsh players. Here is the report by WST:
Late Arrival Allows White Lightning Quick Win
Welsh amateur Michael White required just two frames to defeat Xiao Guodong 4-0 at BetVictor Welsh Open qualifying, after Xiao was docked two frames due to a late arrival.
With Storm Eunice wreaking havoc across the United Kingdom, Xiao was caught in heavy traffic on his way to the venue in Wolverhampton. After arriving 18 minutes late, he found himself 2-0 down before the match had even started.
When play commenced two-time ranking event winner White, who dropped off the tour in 2020, only required 35-minutes to wrap up the win. A run of 64 moved him 3-0 ahead and he capped off the victory by comfortably claiming the next. White will now be in attendance in Newport later this month for the final stages.
Jamie Jones provided further Welsh success, as he recovered from 2-0 down to beat Zhou Yuelong 4-3 in a high quality encounter.
Zhou composed breaks of 66, 62, 67 and 117 during the tie, but it was to no avail. Jones rallied with runs of 67, 61 and 56 as he turned the match around.
Germany’s Lukas Kleckers edged out Cypriot Michael Gerogiou 4-3, while amateur Si Jiahui defeated former Crucible finalist Nigel Bond 4-3.
What happened is very unfortunate for Xiao. I guess that when he finally arrived at the venue he was in no state to play his match properly.
Zhou’s string of miserable results continues. I didn’t see the match and I wonder if it was a case of Zhou succumbing to pressure or Jones upping his game or a bit of both. Zhou’s confidence must be very at the moment.
Zhao Yupeng v Fan Zhengyi was a good match to watch. Both played well and positively. It’s a shame one of them had to lose.
The Holt v O’Donnell match in the evening was a strange affair. It was extremely scrappy. After nearly one hour it was still 1-0 and no where near the conclusion of frame 2. Holt always looked like the winner but he had to show a lot of patience. Bizarrely both played at pace … by their own standards anyway: 23.3 sec/shot is proper speeding from the Minister of Denfence!
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
If I understand correctly, Ronnie is supposed to be playing in an exhibition today and tomorrow. That might be tough for him, given his recent breakup with Laila.
It’s a shame that he has had so little stability in his personal life. Part of that is his own fault, of course, but it seems fair to say that he would have had a much happier life (and even more successful snooker career) if not for his father’s imprisonment.
Without wanting to veer off to the tabloid side, it seems that the announcement of the break-off only confirmed what many more vigilant fans suspected for weeks if not months, so let’s hope whatever fallout followed that, it’s over and done with. (For the sake of fairness I would like to state that Laila’s tweet announced that THEY parted ways, not that “Ronnie broke up with her.)
Given the horror weather yesterday, whatever the rules are, it seems unfair to me that frames were docked because of Xiao being late.
I hadn’t realized that folks had been suspecting for a while now that Ronnie and Laila had broken up. The news this past week was very much “out of the blue” for me…
LOL, you won’t believe what people are capable of spotting and speculating about. They noticed that Ronnie and Laila no longer followed each other on twitter (what makes people check it don’t ask me!) and Laila acquired a dog. From this they drew (a retrospectively correct) conclusion. The power of social media is just beyond belief. 🙂