Here are WST reports on the first day of the last qualifying round for the 2023 UK Championship
Asian Quartet Book York Spots
Chinese duo Ding Junhui and Fan Zhengyi and Thai pair Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Noppon Saengkham all earned places in the televised stages of the MrQ UK Championship by coming through the final qualifying round.
Ding has won this event three times as well as finishing runner-up to Mark Allen last year, and despite having dropped out of the world’s top 16, he’ll be in the field at the Barbican this time.
He scored a 6-3 victory over Robbie Williams to ensure his name will be in the draw to be made on Thursday afternoon. The action in York starts on Saturday.
Breaks of 122, 67 and 54 helped Ding build a 5-1 lead, and despite missing chances in each of the next two frames, he got the job done in the ninth with a run of 113.
“I love playing in York and I didn’t want to miss this one, I tried my best,” said Ding, who lifted the trophy in 2005, 2009 and 2019. “At 5-3 I still felt I would win the match, even though I had missed a couple of shots badly.”
World number 40 Un-Nooh scored a 6-3 success over Ricky Walden. In a high quality contest, Walden made breaks of 108 and 130 but was still beaten by talented Un-Nooh who fired runs of 66, 71, 86 and 102.
“I’m so happy, especially as I have never beaten Ricky before,” said former Shoot Out champion Un-Nooh. “At the last tournament in China I was 5-1 up against Barry Hawkins and lost 6-5, so of course I was thinking about that today at 5-2. I had to stay focussed. It’s an important win for me in terms of qualifying for the World Grand Prix.”
Saengkham saw off Wu Yize 6-4 with a top break of 68 while Fan edged out Michael White 6-5
https://youtube.com/watch?v=yCebN3pfojk%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26enablejsapi%3D1%26origin%3Dhttps%3A
Clarke Beats Gilbert In Dramatic Finish
Jamie Clarke came through an epic 49-minute deciding frame to beat David Gilbert 6-5 and reach the final stages of the MrQ UK Championship.
Matthew Selt, Anthony McGill and Jamie Jones also made it through Judgement Day and they will be in Thursday’s draw for the last 32 in York, which starts on Saturday.
Welshman Clarke came from 4-2 down to lead 5-4, before Gilbert recovered to 5-5. A scrappy decider came down to the last red, and Clarke converted an excellent pot to a baulk corner to set up a winning clearance. The world number 60 has fond memories of this tournament last year as he beat Mark Williams in York to reach the last 16.
He said: “From start to finish it was a terrible game tonight. I wasn’t even nervous, I handled it well but the game was just awful. I just scraped over the line with a good clearance when my heart was pumping. We are all trying to make ourselves proud and make our families proud. A big tournament like this can change your life.”
Selt was up against Lyu Haotian – the same opponent he beat in the final of the Indian Open in 2017 – and came through 6-3 with a top break of 71.
Essex cueman Selt said: “Lyu is a hard cookie to break down, he has improved a lot since I played him in the final in India. Tactically I just got the better of him and tried to keep him in his chair. I feel I am scoring more heavily than I have ever done so to have that combined with my safety is very nice. This is like a separate tournament which finishes with 16 winners who get to go to York, which is one of my favourite venues. I am trending in the right direction and I’m going to enjoy it.”
Jones scored a 6-4 win over Zak Surety, who missed out on what would have been his biggest ever win. Surety made a 69 to lead 4-3, but Welshman Jones battled through the last three frames.
“The standard was outstanding, I played as well as I have all season and made important clearances,” said former Crucible quarter-finalist Jones. “I didn’t back down from any shot, I went for it at the end.
“This is a big prize for everyone. We are all playing for different reasons – some are trying to stay on tour, some of us are trying to get in the World Grand Prix and others just want to get to York. I haven’t been there for a few years so it’s great to be back. I have got prize money and points on the board and I think I’ll be dangerous at the venue.”
Two-time ranking event winner McGill top scored with 92 in a 6-2 win over Anthony Hamilton. The Glaswegian said: “It was a battle and a much closer game than the scoreline suggests. I knew I had to dig in and try hard because I knew I wouldn’t get any easy chances.”
The Eurosport coverage across all table was quite good for what I could watch. Steven Hallworth is doing a very good job in commentary in tandem with David Hendon.
The draw for the “main event” will be made today between the two sessions
… and a big disappointment …
After over a year of waiting and all the promotional razzmatazz over the last days, i found out that I can’t watch Ronnie’s documentary. It’s not available on Prime in Belgium, nor is it in France … and probably it’s the same everywhere other that the UK and – maybe – Ireland.
This is very, very disappointing.
Also today, the “news” are full of the “Ronnie might quit snooker …” stuff. Here is where that comes from: a trailer for the interview shown today on the BBC where Ronnie says that if he he not free to play where he wants, mainly China, on his terms, then he might just chose not to play at all and maybe go play Chinese Pool in China.
This is the full interview (the title is misleading)
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
I’d really like to know how you all see this:
Do you seriously believe that O’Sullivan seriously considers moving to China and to play Chinese pool? Really?
Since I am not inside O’Sullivan’s head – in the unlikely case he makes good on his threat, and abandons snooker to play pool in China, what would your reaction be? Would you look for Chinese streaming outfits to watch pool? Or would you rather resolve to stick with snooker and to wish O’Sullivan “Good riddance!”
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Over at snooker.org:
On the “Rankings” page (https://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?template=31) the links for “Q School (2023)” and “Women” point to “Season 2022” documents, like:
https://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?template=61&season=2022
… even though a season=2023 document exists.
Also, the drop-down list to the right of “Women’s World Rankings” is not being populated with the available seasons.
Maybe that’s just something happening on my machine. Perhaps if you looked into it and informed the good folks at snooker.org in case it’s the same on yours?
Knowing Ronnie he might give it a try but I doubt he would stick to it for long. that said, he will turn 48 in less than two weeks. It may be that there is enough interest in Asia for him to “live” on “exhibitions tours” for a while. And if he’s off the main tour, I have no doubts that Jason Francis would come up with all sorts of interesting things. I will continue to watch snooker with or without Ronnie and this blog will continue as well. Also WST may find out that giving the players more freedom is beneficial for everyone.
I will look into the snooker.org stuff. Thank you for telling us.
Hi Monique – so sorry to hear you can’t watch the film on Prime.
All I would say (having seen it myself at a cinema) is that if you do get the chance to watch it in a cinema, I suspect it works better – the soundtrack is an absolute masterpiece and adds a huge amount to it. I don’t usually like cinemas but I can’t imagine any home hifi doing it justice!
I appreciate this may not be of any help considering you are visiting family in Belgium, but if on the off chance there is a cinema showing it, I think that would make for a better viewing experience than on Prime. Best of luck.
Thank you RP … but I’m afraid there is zero chance of that. On Monday I’m going back to Santorini in Greece, in the middle of the Aegean sea… where we have one open air cinema, closing in winter for obvious reasons