The qualifiers for the 2023 British Open started yesterday and here is the report by WST:

Singh When You’re Winning

India’s Ishpreet Singh Chadha continued his promising start to his rookie season on the World Snooker Tour as he beat Manasawin Phetmalaikul 4-1 to qualify for the final stages of the Cazoo British Open.

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Having earning a place on the circuit via Asian Q School, Singh has won his first two qualifying matches of the season as he also beat Ryan Thomerson to earn a spot at next week’s BetVictor European Masters in Germany. He can then look forward to a trip to Cheltenham in September.

Singh, who had a previous career as one of India’s top professional gamers before dedicating himself to snooker, compiled breaks of 50, 92 and 62 today in an emphatic win over Phetmalaikul.

Pakistan’s Muhammad Asif also enjoyed a notable victory as he beat seven-time World Champion Stephen Hendry 4-2. Veteran Hendry took the opening frame with a run of 73, but Asif hit back to take four of the next five with a top break of 66.

Crucible semi-finalist Si Jiahui beat Lukas Kleckers 4-1 while rising star Ben Mertens made a 101 to round off a 4-2 win over Louis Heathcote. Ken Doherty came from 2-1 down to beat Alfie Burden 4-2.

All the detailed results are available on snooker.org as always.

I never understood what “guides” WST in their choice of matches to report on. Why don’t they report on all of them? That would be only fair. But if they can’t report on all … how do they select the “lucky ones”. I suspect that the main criteria is to try to please their British readers, many of them indulging in nostalgia.

For instance, there is no reporting on 19 years old debutant Ma Hailong victory over the experienced Ian Burns. It wasn’t an easy match, there was little fluency but Ma did well to win it and scored two breaks over 50.

The match between Louis Heathcote and Ben Mertens was a good one to watch. Ben’s century to finish the job was a very nice one.

Hendry’s defeat to Asif was another for the “frustrating to watch” collection. Hendry won the first frame, with a 73, that remained the highest break of the match. After that however, as Asif was finding some form, Hendry grew increasingly frustrated and it was plain for all to see both in his demeanour and his shot selection. Why does he put himself through this if he’s not enjoying it? Asif is a good solid player and he would have won by 4-1 if it wasn’t for a rare incident in frame 5. With only the colours on the table, Asif attempted a long yellow in the green pocket. It was effectively match ball. The yellow stayed in the pocket … literally IN the pocket without dropping … at least not immediately. Luize Kraatz, the referee, called the scores, the player started walking, Asif towards his seat, Hendry towards where the cueball stood … and only then the yellow dropped. Luize had to replace it where it stood before, in the pocket, and it took some effort to convince that yellow to stay up there. 😉.

The governing body had promised some improvements to the temporary scoring system. There is: we now have the “points remaining” feature working although slightly differently than it was before. What it shows is actually the remaining points available to the player who is at the table. For instance, at the start of the frame, after the first red is potted, the remaining available points will be 146 and that’s indeed correct from the player at the table point of view. Now if that player plays safe, and their opponent comes at the table, the available points will change to 139 and that, again, is correct from the player at the table point of view. So, that’s an important feature now available. Unfortunately the scores are still not refreshing automatically, at least not consistently.

This wouldn’t be a “normal” first day at a WST event without some shambles. For some mysterious reason Discovery+/Eurosport was showing all matches everywhere they are active EXCEPT in the UK . Matchroom.live wasn’t showing the first day (why is anyones’ guess). There were several streams available in China as well. So, basically, on the first day of the 2023 BRITISH Open, the whole world could watch the action EXCEPT for the BRITISH fans. You couldn’t make that up. Eventually WPBSA/WST provided a stream on Facebook …