This is WST report on day 3 at the 2023 International Championship

Two-Ton Pullen Ditches Dott

Liam Pullen made two centuries during a 6-4 defeat of former World Champion Graeme Dott in the qualifying round for the International Championship.

Tour rookie Pullen, age 18, goes through to the final stages of the world ranking event, to take place in Tianjin in China in November.

The teenager from Yorkshire compiled breaks of 119, 51 and 101 in taking a 4-1 lead. After sharing the next two, 2006 Crucible king Dott won frames eight and nine to close to 5-4, and he led 45-0 in the tenth. But Pulled clawed his way back and snatched it with a brown-to-black clearance to cross the winning line.

Stuart Bingham eased to a 6-0 win over Xing Zihao, while Jimmy Robertson top scored with 118 in a 6-2 success against Anton Kazakov. Noppon Saengkham rattled in runs of 74, 69, 80, 67, 117 and 123 during a 6-3 defeat of Victor Sarkis.

Gary Wilson needed just 81 minutes to beat Mohamed Ibrahim 6-0 with breaks of 103, 89, 64, 103 and 94.

It’s worth noting that Dott started the match in the worst possible way, losing frame 1 on the “three miss rule” and it’s hard to know if and how that affected him. Never mind that incident, this is an excellent result from the young man against one of the hardest “positive match-player” there is in the game.

As usual the above report leaves a lot of matches out. All the detailed results are available on snooker.org.

Sam Craigie beat Rory Thor by 6-1. That match was much closer than the scores suggest and Rory lost the last frame despite scoring a 55 break in it.

Zhang And beat Arnie Ursenbacher by 6-3 in a hard fought match. Both had a 50+ break in the first frame but it was Zhang who prevailed. Zhang lead 4-0 at the MSI but Arnie didn’t give up: he won three of the last five frames but it was too much to do, too late against a “reliable” opponent.

Not mentioned either is Xiao Guodong win over Ishpreet Singh Chada. Xiao had three breaks over 50 in that match whilst Ishpreet Singh had none. The Indian player however is really good, tactically sound. If he can start scoring a bit more heavily, he will become seriously dangerous.

It is strange that Hossein Vafaei 6-1 win over Reanne Evans isn’t mentioned. Hossein had two centuries and two other breaks over 50 in that match. Reanne had a 53 and a 77. The 53 came in frame 4, a frame she lost by 68-67 …

Also “forgotten” is Mark Davis’ excellent 6-4 win over Rod Lawler. “Dark Mavis” played really well in that match: he made breaks of 61, 66, 91, 89 and 56. “Rod the Plod” himself scored breaks of 68 and 113. When I use Rod’s nickname, it’s just a bit of teasing. I quite like him actually. Yes, he’s slow, very slow, but he’s never negative and his break building skills are excellent. Watching him play can be a bit of a “zen” exercice”. Rod is just slow … on and off the table, and he’s a very likeable character as well.