This is WST report on what happened on the baize yesterday

Miah Earns Cheltenham Spot

World number 109 Hammad Miah scored a 4-3 victory over a player ranked 84 places higher, Zhou Yuelong, to reach the final stages of the Cazoo British Open in Cheltenham.

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China’s Zhou is a three-time ranking event finalist but he won’t be at the final stages of this one as he finished second best in the qualifying round despite making a break of 105 in the opening frame then going 2-0 ahead. Miah hit back to win four of the last five frames with a top break of 61.

World number 20 Ricky Walden was another player to lose to a lower-ranked opponent as he went down 4-0 against Xu Si, whose top break was 67.

Highest break of the day was 134, made by Robbie Williams during a 4-0 rout of Pang Junxu. Dominic Dale rattled in runs of 91, 67 and 54 during a 4-1 defeat of Mark Joyce.

Oliver Lines top scored with 71 in a 4-0 win over practice partner Liam Pullen, while Oliver Brown made a 79 clearance in the deciding frame to edge out Himanshu Jain 4-3.

The match between Oliver Brown and Himanshu Jain was as close and as hard-fought as it gets. Neither deserved to lose. They both gave it everything. The match actually over-ran. It’s good that the tournament director allowed them to finish it, and didn’t pull them off.

I didn’t expect Xu Si to beat Ricky Walden by 4-0. Ricky was really poor and Xu played well. Another surprise for me was Robbie Williams trashing Pang Junxu by 4-0. Robbie on his day is a very big scorer. It must have been one of these days: Pang potted just one ball in the last three frames, whilst Robbie scored breaks of 51, 77 and 134.

Once again some matches are missing in the report, this time they are the two that finished late. You will find all the detailed results on snooker.org

Scott Donaldson beat Adam Duffy by 4-1 in a match that featured 5 breaks over 60. It was “one visit” snooker from start to finish. It’s nice to see Scott play well again despite still not being completely over his health issues.

Barry Hearn was on Hendry’s “cuetips”, answering fans’ questions

It’s very interesting, and very funny at times as well. You may need to listen to it several times to absorb everything. Here are the things I picked as important

• Confirmation that Eddie Hearn is NOT interested in snooker one bit. Barry insist that he can still be useful on the commercial side but will he want to make the effort if he’s not interested?
• Barry Hearn is all about money, but we knew that, and it has benefitted snooker that he has that mentality actually.
• The Saudi Arabia contract is not signed yet but the event will almost certainly happen. They won’t be able to put on an extravagant prize money because Barry insists that the World Championship must stay the one offering the biggest prize money. So he capped their acceptable offer at equalling it.
• Barry would love to stay at the Crucible, but at the same time he wants a bigger Crucible, some 2500 seats. And it should be a multipurpose venue that Sheffield can use all year long.
• Barry praised Ronnie for what he brought to the game but is convinced that once he retires, players will come that will be better than him. Personally I’m not sure about the latter, I can’t see anyone in the current crop with such a potential. I can’t see the next Ronnie, nor can I see the next John Higgins or the next Willo. Not unless the amateur game grows and becomes far more brutal and competitive.
• Barry recognises that the game is UK centric, too much so, and he wants to expand it. Europe though doesn’t seem to be on his radar. Probably because that’s not where he sees the money coming from. And his thoughts are about having more events outside UK, but there was no mention of the current organisation with all qualifiers being held in the UK and that’s a huge part of the issue.