We are now at this stage of the World qualifiers where one-sided matches become the exception. Almost all players remaining on course are quality and yesterday was filled with tension at the EIS in Sheffield. Play finished very late too.
CRUCIBLE QUALIFYING DAY FOUR: HEATHCOTE WIN LEAVES LINES ON VERGE
Louis Heathcote scored a 10-7 win to move two matches from the Crucible and leave close friend Oliver Lines in danger of relegation from the circuit at Cazoo World Championship qualifying in Sheffield.
Heathcote himself suffered demotion from the tour after last year’s World Championship, but bounced straight back via Q School.
Lines must await other results going his way this year. He is currently projected to stay on tour via the one year list, but that could change.
Today’s match was keenly contested, with there never being more than a single frame between the players until Heathcote moved 7-5 ahead. He then hammered home a break of 118 to consolidate his lead and move 8-5 up.
Yorkshire’s Lines won two on the bounce to keep himself in contention at 8-7. However, a break of 56 was enough to take Leicester cueman Heathcote one from the win.
The 17th frame saw Lines craft a run of 60, before Heathcote responded to make 62 and take the frame down the pink. He eventually deposited it to get over the line and book a round three meeting with Elliot Slessor.
“It is a bittersweet moment. First and foremost, I really do hope the results go Ollie’s way. He is far too good to fall off tour. I think he has one of the best cue actions on tour,” said 26-year-old Heathcote.
“To play well and hold myself together under those circumstances is great for me going forward. I’m gutted for Ollie as well. Any other day I would be buzzing to win that game, but to put your friend in jeopardy of dropping off tour isn’t very nice. I’ve got to focus on my career and he is more than good enough to be on tour, I hope it stays that way.”
Final frame defeats for Liam Highfield and Allan Taylor mean they are relegated from the professional ranks. Highfield was edged out 10-9 by Stuart Carrington, while Taylor bowed out 10-9 against Lukas Kleckers.
Jenson Kendrick kept his tour survival hopes alive with a brilliant 10-8 win against Ben Woolaston. He now faces Jordan Brown in round three, which is another must win match if he is to stand a chance of remaining on the circuit.
Jimmy White’s bid to return to the Crucible ended for another year with a 10-3 loss at the hands of China’s Lyu Hongyu. The six-time finalist now hasn’t competed in the final stages for 19 years, with 2005 his last appearance.
Jamie Clarke beat Andres Petrov 10-7 to relegate the Estonian from the tour, while Jimmy Robertson beat Liam Davies 10-2 and James Cahill edged out Hungary’s Bulcsú Révész 10-8.
Please, someone tell whoever writes for WST that it’s Andres Petrov, not Andrews Petrov AND that there are accented vowels in Bulcsú Révész … UK centrism manifesting itself once again although Andrews instead of Andres was probably an “auto correct” issue.
Speaking of snooker.org, the “new and improved” scoring system makes the team’s task extremely hard. It was always difficult to follow as many as eight matches simultaneously, but now it has become even harder. It’s hell really. When I finished my “shift” yesterday it was midnight here in Greece. For Eddie, from Wales, who took charge after me, it was “only” 10pm but the way things were unfolding we expected a late finish and it was indeed. Eddie joked that he was ready tucked in a sleeping bag, armed with a thermos of coffee …
The matches I particularly “followed” yesterday were He Guoqiang v Ross Muir and Andrew Higginson v Michael White. Going by the scores He played really well. Higginson v White was very tense, both making a lot of mistakes. I always liked Andrew, not just as a player but as a person and I really want to see him do well. I have nothing against Michael White mind. Michael has underachieved imo. In fact, I think that, to an extend, he’s been a victim of the “drinking culture” in the UK and on the tour. He was very young when he first qualified for the main tour and I remember older players encouraging him to drink – under pretext of being “social” – and getting him drunk … and sick. Not right, not nice.
For me today, it will be about the two Belgian lads, Julien and Ben. One win for Julien would probably be enough for him to stay on tour. Ben will have the daunting task to handle Rod Lawler snail pace.
Ben Mertens is one of the best teenage talents in the game (Picture: Facebook/Ben Mertens Snooker)
Ben Mertens is playing for his professional status at World Championship qualifying, but the teenager is thinking positive, saying: ‘I’m confident, I’m playing well, so nothing to worry about.’
The 19-year-old won his place on the World Snooker Tour in 2022 and has had some good results, but goes to Sheffield needing to win matches to retain his tour card as he is outside of the world’s top 64 and off the pace on the one-year ranking list.
The Belgian clearly has the talent to do it, with wins over the likes of Shaun Murphy and Gary Wilson this season and he will be dangerous in qualifying, where he plays Rod Lawler in his first match on Friday.
‘I know what situation I’m in, I have to win a few games to stay on tour,’ Mertens told Metro. ‘So it’s nerves but also exciting because it’s the World Championship and a chance to qualify for the Crucible.
‘Of course I have to think about the good things and not what could go wrong.
‘Qualifying for the Crucible, that’s the only thing to think about, not all the rest. I did well last year in qualifying, I’m confident, I’m playing well, so nothing to worry about.’
The youngster from Wetteren feels tough draws, strong performances from his opponents and fine margins have all cost him, but he is not down about any of it, expecting things to turn round.
Mertens needs wins in World Championship qualifying to remain a professional (Picture: Getty Images)
‘A lot of matches I’ve played have been really close, could have gone both ways and players have played really well against me the last few tournaments,’ he said. ‘I can’t really complain too much about myself because I’m playing well.
‘It is what it is. It’s good to have tough draws. I’ll be a stronger player because of it in the future. I don’t worry too much.
‘I know if I’m playing well I can beat anyone, so I just need to trust in myself, that’s the only thing that matters.’
Mertens would love to stay on the tour in style by qualifying for the Crucible for the first time, then he would be dreaming of replicating his compatriot Luca Brecel’s achievement of last year.
The teenager has never been to the legendary venue before, refusing to go in to watch before playing there.
‘The Crucible, that’s the place to be in snooker, that’s my dream to play there one day. I saw what Luca did there, that gives me inspiration,’ he said.
Luca Brecel became the first Belgian winner of the World Snooker Championship (Picture: Getty Images)
‘We’ve talked a few times in the past. He’s a very nice guy and I want to try and do the same as him in the future, to be at the Crucible and play well there, that’s what I want.
‘I won’t go there before I do that, if I go to the Crucible it will be to play, not watch.’
On the impact of Brecel’s sensational World Championship win back in Belgium, Mertens said: ‘It’s more popular now, clubs are fully booked now, there’s more attention, which is only good news. I would love to see a tournament here.’
‘It’s still there,’ he said. ‘I had some tests and they said everything is normal. In the past it was a mental issue, now it’s getting better, I’m not thinking about it mentally anymore.
‘It isn’t affecting my game, but it was affecting my mental side of the game. I was always thinking about it, that people would see it, but I’m not worrying about it anymore. It is what it is.
‘It was a surprise, I never had it before, so it was something I had to get used to, getting a tremor out of nowhere. But it’s getting better now. If I get nervous you will see it more, but if I’m calm it’s okay. I just have to try and stay calm during games, try not to get too much pressure and then it doesn’t affect me.’
Mertens takes on Lawler over Friday and Saturday in his first round of World Championship qualifying.
18 thoughts on “The 2024 World Snooker Championship Qualifiers – Day 4”
Haha, now Hilde is indeed officiating the second session of Mertens-Lawler. :)
A pity Bulcsú lost, also, because it would have been nice to see Cahill gone. I’m looking forward to seeing Bulcsú on the tour next season.
What? Of all People they choose Olivier Marteel for the Lawler-Mertens match???
Why not? Because Ben is Belgian? Do they avoid British refs on matches involving British players? Those refs are professionals and I trust their integrity.
Would you like to see Tatiana Woollaston referee one of her husband’s matches as well? Well, I trust them too, but I’m still fairly surprised.
That’s not the same thing. Ben Mertens is not family to Olivier Marteel. Their relationship is just professional. This is not weirder than, f.i. , Paul Collier refereeing on a match involving Mark Williams, Ryan Day, Matthew Stevens or any of the Welsh players.
For me it’s weirder. But it’s no big deal.
Would you care to explain rationally why it’s weirder? I never read any comment by you on any of the Chinese refs officiating when Chinese players are involved, nor about any of the British refs officiating when British players are involved. So? What’s weird? Would you find it weird if it was Hilde Moens officiating? Or Jan Scheers? or Nico de Vos? Hilde and Nico are currently in Sheffield BTW.
Just because it would have been easy to avoid, because with the referees and the players you mentioned we have under 10 Belgian persons on the tour. Whereas it is extremely difficult to avoid having always non-English referees when an Englishman is involved or a non-Chinese referee at a Chinese tournament for example. I thought if you can easily and always avoid such a combination, then I would tend to arrange it that way as a tournament director, because then you avoid as well having any possible discussions, if the highly unlikely case would happen that there would occur a strange situation. But if you can’t avoid it always, then it might be too much of a scheduling problem and I can understand that they then don’t follow that strategy. But you are right, they don’t seem to be interested in avoiding such things at all, which I can understand as well, because the situations where the referee has to decide on its own are limited in snooker. It was a pure mathematically consideration.
Ok, I see how it came across. You would think that one could say then that the tournament direction thinks Belgian referees are less trustworthy. Ok, I literally just noticed this problem while I’m writing this. Maybe would have happened as there is so much interpreted in all possible decisions nowadays.
Yes and not just that but also in those qualifiers it’s not at all uncommon that one ref does the first session and another one the second session, or even that the ref is changed during the match. That happens for instance if a match is dragging and the ref on duty is scheduled for a match in the next session. They replace him/her before the match ends as to allow them to rest a bit and eat something. The most important thing here is that refs stay fresh and alert. Those matches are so important for the players, especially those at risk to be relegated.
There was a Hungarian referee for one of Bulcsú’s WSF-matches. I suppose they don’t care about nationality and expect professionalism.
As to Lewis: “Much as I like Ursenbacher, I avoided that match completely, on principle.”
Interesting. What “principle” is that? Thou shalt not be frustrated to tears?
I know, and I also know for having worked in IT for most of my adult life that dealing with accented characters in databases is quite tricky. It’s not handled properly by most systems. The snooker.org site has been developed many, many years ago, and it doesn’t handle it, but WST system is supposed to be brand new and, anyway, in “pure texts” there is no excuse no to spell players names properly, at least for those nationalities that use a variation of the “latin” alphabet.
You may wish to look at HTML entities to display the accented vowels, like
ú -> & uacute;
é -> & eacute;
… without the spaces after the ampersands:
Bulcs& uacute; R& eacute;v& eacute;sz
You’ve probably tried that – still hope it helps, since the proper spelling of names seems of significant import to you (I tend to agree).
Lewis just doesn’t like any legend or veteran in snooker. That’s the principle.
😁😁
In any case, Ursenbacher is gone, so unless he draws Ronnie a few first rounds next season (difficult with the new tiered system), we see him in QSchool next year.
Indeed, ‘Lyu’ and ‘Woolaston’. There have been mistakes on the scoreboard here, such as ‘Rebecca Kenny’. Some of this is perhaps due to aggressive auto-correct, compounded by a very thin level of proofing.
I wandered around quite a bit, and saw parts of many matches. He Guoqiang was magnificent, and Ross Muir was very sporting in defeat. There were also some great finishes under pressure by Cahill, Carrington, Kleckers, Kendrick, Heathcote and Michael White.
Allan Taylor adopted the strategy of going for everything, which is wonderful when it works. But just at the times he needed to slow down and be careful, it cost him. Agonisingly, he missed a red into the middle pocket, and Kleckers cleared up to win. Kleckers himself was playing much more fluently than he has done, which is a risk. He has given himself a chance of survival.
Much as I like Ursenbacher, I avoided that match completely, on principle.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Haha, now Hilde is indeed officiating the second session of Mertens-Lawler. :)
A pity Bulcsú lost, also, because it would have been nice to see Cahill gone. I’m looking forward to seeing Bulcsú on the tour next season.
What? Of all People they choose Olivier Marteel for the Lawler-Mertens match???
Why not? Because Ben is Belgian? Do they avoid British refs on matches involving British players? Those refs are professionals and I trust their integrity.
Would you like to see Tatiana Woollaston referee one of her husband’s matches as well? Well, I trust them too, but I’m still fairly surprised.
That’s not the same thing. Ben Mertens is not family to Olivier Marteel. Their relationship is just professional. This is not weirder than, f.i. , Paul Collier refereeing on a match involving Mark Williams, Ryan Day, Matthew Stevens or any of the Welsh players.
For me it’s weirder. But it’s no big deal.
Would you care to explain rationally why it’s weirder? I never read any comment by you on any of the Chinese refs officiating when Chinese players are involved, nor about any of the British refs officiating when British players are involved. So? What’s weird? Would you find it weird if it was Hilde Moens officiating? Or Jan Scheers? or Nico de Vos? Hilde and Nico are currently in Sheffield BTW.
Just because it would have been easy to avoid, because with the referees and the players you mentioned we have under 10 Belgian persons on the tour. Whereas it is extremely difficult to avoid having always non-English referees when an Englishman is involved or a non-Chinese referee at a Chinese tournament for example. I thought if you can easily and always avoid such a combination, then I would tend to arrange it that way as a tournament director, because then you avoid as well having any possible discussions, if the highly unlikely case would happen that there would occur a strange situation. But if you can’t avoid it always, then it might be too much of a scheduling problem and I can understand that they then don’t follow that strategy. But you are right, they don’t seem to be interested in avoiding such things at all, which I can understand as well, because the situations where the referee has to decide on its own are limited in snooker. It was a pure mathematically consideration.
Ok, I see how it came across. You would think that one could say then that the tournament direction thinks Belgian referees are less trustworthy. Ok, I literally just noticed this problem while I’m writing this. Maybe would have happened as there is so much interpreted in all possible decisions nowadays.
Yes and not just that but also in those qualifiers it’s not at all uncommon that one ref does the first session and another one the second session, or even that the ref is changed during the match. That happens for instance if a match is dragging and the ref on duty is scheduled for a match in the next session. They replace him/her before the match ends as to allow them to rest a bit and eat something. The most important thing here is that refs stay fresh and alert. Those matches are so important for the players, especially those at risk to be relegated.
There was a Hungarian referee for one of Bulcsú’s WSF-matches. I suppose they don’t care about nationality and expect professionalism.
Exactly Csilla.
“here are accented vowels in Bulcsú Révész”
Quite, but look:
http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?player=2655
************
As to Lewis: “Much as I like Ursenbacher, I avoided that match completely, on principle.”
Interesting. What “principle” is that? Thou shalt not be frustrated to tears?
I know, and I also know for having worked in IT for most of my adult life that dealing with accented characters in databases is quite tricky. It’s not handled properly by most systems. The snooker.org site has been developed many, many years ago, and it doesn’t handle it, but WST system is supposed to be brand new and, anyway, in “pure texts” there is no excuse no to spell players names properly, at least for those nationalities that use a variation of the “latin” alphabet.
You may wish to look at HTML entities to display the accented vowels, like
ú -> & uacute;
é -> & eacute;
… without the spaces after the ampersands:
Bulcs& uacute; R& eacute;v& eacute;sz
You’ve probably tried that – still hope it helps, since the proper spelling of names seems of significant import to you (I tend to agree).
Lewis just doesn’t like any legend or veteran in snooker. That’s the principle.
😁😁
In any case, Ursenbacher is gone, so unless he draws Ronnie a few first rounds next season (difficult with the new tiered system), we see him in QSchool next year.
Indeed, ‘Lyu’ and ‘Woolaston’. There have been mistakes on the scoreboard here, such as ‘Rebecca Kenny’. Some of this is perhaps due to aggressive auto-correct, compounded by a very thin level of proofing.
I wandered around quite a bit, and saw parts of many matches. He Guoqiang was magnificent, and Ross Muir was very sporting in defeat. There were also some great finishes under pressure by Cahill, Carrington, Kleckers, Kendrick, Heathcote and Michael White.
Allan Taylor adopted the strategy of going for everything, which is wonderful when it works. But just at the times he needed to slow down and be careful, it cost him. Agonisingly, he missed a red into the middle pocket, and Kleckers cleared up to win. Kleckers himself was playing much more fluently than he has done, which is a risk. He has given himself a chance of survival.
Much as I like Ursenbacher, I avoided that match completely, on principle.