As I wrote in my previous post, yesterday I was on the road and I saw nothing at all of the snooker action. The two young Belgians were playing and I will certainly watch their matches sometime later this week.
Mertens Conquers Magician
Belgian 18-year-old Ben Mertens secured a superb 5-2 win over 2005 World Champion Shaun Murphy to make the final stages of the Wuhan Open.
World number 72 Mertens first showcased his talent in 2020 when he became the youngest player to win a match at the World Championship, aged 15. Liam Davies has since eclipsed that record.
Mertens has enjoyed a strong start to this season, having made the last 32 of the BetVictor European Masters and qualified for the Cazoo British Open, after a win over Louis Heathcote.
Mertens made a break of 117 on his way to taking the first two frames this evening. Murphy hit back with two on the bounce to restore parity at 2-2, but it was Mertens who made a crucial burst for the finish. Contributions of 57, 70 and 65 saw him emerge a 5-2 victor.
Judd Trump earned his place in Wuhan with a comprehensive 5-1 win over Germany’s Lukas Kleckers. The 2019 World Champion fired in breaks of 87, 57,82 and 79.
Welshman Daniel Wells defeated compatriot Matthew Stevens 5-1 to seal his qualification, while Graeme Dott beat Belgian Julien Leclercq 5-3 in a hard fought contest.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2wXNsIeoEfQ%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26enablejsapi%3D1%26origin%3Dhttps%3A
I was very happy to find out that Ben had beaten Shaun Murphy, but I wasn’t overly surprised. Indeed Shaun has the type of open attacking game that suits Ben. It’s the type of snooker he loves to play. I’m disappointed that there are no post-match quotes by Ben in this report. Ben speaks English rather fluently, he’s certainly more than capable to give a good post-match interview.
Julien lost to Graeme Dott but it was hard fought. Dotty had work to beat him. Graeme Dott is seriously under-rated, by fans and by pundits. You don’t make it to the final at the Crucible three times, you don’t become a World Champion beating Ebdon of all people if you aren’t very, very good AND equipped with an iron will to win. Julien should learn a lot from this match.
As usual, a lot of matches are missing from that report. You will find all the results on snooker.org.
There were a lot of one-sided matches yesterday. Xiao Guodong beating Alexander Ursenbacher by 5-0 still surprised me. Not the fact that Xiao won, but the score. Then, it seems that Xiao was in high scoring mood … he had a break over 50 in each of the last four frames of the match. That said it’s bit worrying for Alex. He hasn’t won a single match in a straight knockout tournament this season so far.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
In the meantime Andres Petrov voiced his very well justified unhappiness with scheduling (he asked to put his two qualifying ,matches on back-to-back days, but did not get it, so had to pay a lot more for hotels) and with the inability of using practice tables once he is out of the competition.
Paul Collier since responded that he did not know it and practicing is possible, only one cannot book.
“That said it’s bit worrying for Alex. He hasn’t won a single match in a straight knockout tournament this season so far.”
That’s because he hasn’t played Ronnie yet…
You were faster than me. 🙂 Just what I wanted to say. 🙂
I thought Julien Leclercq was very wasteful in his match. He has all the ability to become a top player, but currently he’s far too loose. He needs to learn to slow down, and give every ball proper attention. Yes, Graeme Dott was a World Champion, but those days are long gone.
I suspect the Shaun Murphy was none too pleased to find himself playing qualifier matches on these rotten tables. Of course, players aren’t permitted to talk, but it’s clear nobody is happy, especially top players who expect superior conditions. Nevertheless, Ben Mertens played extremely well, and his progress is good.
Lyu Haotian won easily, and then found his morning match had been the last to finish! There are quite a lot of uncompetitive players on tour right now.