Yet another shot and incomplete report from WST:
Graham Scores First Professional Win
Scottish 18-year-old Liam Graham prevailed in a final frame decider to beat China’s Cao Yupeng 4-3 at Cazoo British Open qualifying in Leicester.
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Rookie Graham earned his maiden stint on the World Snooker Tour by beating Iulian Boiko in the final of the European Under-21 Championship back in March. Today’s victory against former Scottish Open finalist Cao is his first since making the leap to the professional ranks.
Breaks of 57 and 69 helped Graham to secure an early 2-0 lead this morning, before Cao hit back with three on the bounce to move one away from the win at 3-2. However, Graham dug deep and took the sixth on the black to force a decider. He then dramatically also took the last on the black to clinch his place in the final stages.
Former Crucible semi-finalist David Gilbert scored a 4-1 win over Australia’s Ryan Thomerson to progress. Tamworth cueman Gilbert crafted runs of 63 and 77 en route to victory.
Egypt’s Mohamed Ibrahim defeated former Women’s World Champion Mink Nutcharut 4-3, while Iran’s Hossein Vafaei beat Andy Lee 4-1.
Whilst Liam Graham of course deserves praise for his first professional win – congratulations to him – I find it unsettling that 3/4 of the whole report is about just one match whilst there were eight played yesterday. Three more matches are briefly covered, four are completely ignored.
You will find all the results on snooker.org
Mink was defeated by Mohamed Ibrahim by 4-3 … that certainly doesn’t tell the whole story. Mink came back from 0-3 down to force a decider. This was the situation on the table at one point during frame 6:
Mohamed Ibrahim is a very solid player. Mink, who had only just come back from Australia, was probably still jet-lagged,. She showed a lot of resilience. She impressed many on social media yesterday. Her game is improving by the day. She has the right attitude. She will probably not be able to stay on tour at the end of this season, but she may well re-qualify via the women’s tour, and, if she continues to progress, we could see a totally different and far more dangerous animal at the table next season.
Liam Graham was not the only rookie to win his first match yesterday. Indeed He Guoqiang, a 23 years old from China, beat Elliot Slessor by 4-2. Elliot scored a break over 50 in both frames he won, but lost all the close ones.
Apparently WST score system failed again, as, currently, the detailed results are missing for the last four matches played yesterday.
Ashley Carty beat Jackson Page by 4-2. Of course, Jackson is only 22, still very young, but he’s not living up to the hype his first appearances in main tour matches created. In the evening session, Ashley Hugill beat Jack Jones by 4-2 and Rodd Muir beat Stuart Carrington by 4-3.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Chinese U21 tournament, very likely winner an runner-up ultimately going to main tour.
One-child violations can be settled with fines in some better cities.
(1.but it definitely discouraged as fines were high, based on yearly disposable income.
2. and extreme cases of forced abortions.
But I still find it nonsense for asylum… if one can pay the fee going aboard, then they should be able to pay the fine.)
I was very disappointed, Mink lost. She should have won this match, Ibrahim was not playing all that well at all. She will lose her tourcard and may get another one through the women’s tour, but it’s a very precarious situation and I’m afraid, only playing in the women’s tour would hurt her.
Yes it was a fine win for Liam Graham, but I don’t know how Cao Yupeng managed to lose, ultimately in two black-ball frames. Cao would have been hoping for momentum after winning the tournament in Xi’an, but maybe he had travel lag.
I expected Elliot Slessor, a safety specialist, to be a difficult opponent for He Guoqiang, who had lost his only previous match 5-0. He Guoqiang is a fine player, but has had off-table issues. He did well, but Slessor’s long game was not there.
Meanwhile, back in China, the semi-finals of the Dongguan U21 tournament are Gao Yang-Zhou Jinhao and Gong Chenzhi-Wang Yuhang. These are all excellent prospects. In April, Bai Yulu got a 142 break in beating Gao Yang, but this time Gao won 3-1, although Bai got another century break, her second of the tournament after two 3-0 wins. In the U14 event, one of the semi-finalists Guan Hanlin, is only 9 years old. The other ’cause celebre’ was two brothers Wang Xinbo and Wang Xinzhong playing. This is unprecedented in Chinese snooker. The remarkable Ju Reti had 3 brothers, but from an illiterate Uyghur farming family where the one-child policy didn’t apply.