Here are the reports by WST on what happened yesterday in Xi’an:

Afternoon matches

XI’AN GRAND PRIX DAY FOUR

Barry Hawkins scored one of his best results of recent seasons as he beat world number one Mark Allen 5-3 to reach the quarter-finals of the Xi’an Grand Prix.

That result opens the door for Judd Trump to take over as world number one if he can reach the final this week.

August seems to be a fruitful month for Hawkins as he reached the final of the European Masters in 2022, won the same event last year, and is now enjoying a fine run this week.

World number 15 Hawkins took a 3-0 lead with a top break of 94. Allen recovered to 4-2 and was on for a 147 in frame seven until he missed a tricky penultimate red on 104. And he had chances for 4-4 but could’t take one and Hawkins wrapped up the result.

“To beat the world number one is brilliant,” said Londoner Hawkins, age 45. “I still feel I have more to give. It depends wherther I can stay dedicated to practice and doing the right things off the table. Hopefully I’ve got another tournament win in me.“

Shanghai Masters champion Trump has won eight out of eight matches so far this season and has lost only two frames this week. He cruised to a 5-1 win over Crucible runner-up Jak Jones with top breaks of 51 and 52.

China’s Xu Si reached the second ranking event quarter-final of his career – and first since the 2017 Indian Open – with a superb 5-4 win over Mark Williams. From 4-2 down, Xu won the last three frames with top breaks of 77 and 109.

“After losing the sixth frame, I felt a bit frustrated,” said Xu. “I had a chance to level at 3-3, but suddenly I was 4-2 down, which dampened my spirits. I took a break to the rest room to adjust myself. I told myself to focus on safety then opportunities would come. 

“In the deciding frame, I adjusted my mindset well, and I was quite confident at that point. Playing against Mark was actually quite relaxing, and I didn’t put too much weight on winning or losing. Reaching the quarter-finals has already exceeded my expectations.”

China’s 17-year-old Gong Chenzhi saw his run end with a 5-4 defeat against Matthew Selt. Gong was one ball from a 5-3 victory when he missed the final pink, playing with the rest, leading by 13 points. He later went in-off during a safety bout, and Selt potted an excellent pink to middle then added the black for 4-4, and went on to dominate the decider.

“I didn’t play well today but I’m delighted to win because I’ve always had a poor record in China and this is my first quarter-final here,” said Selt.

“I’m playing with a new cue this week, with a titanium ferrule. I only had 45 minutes practice with it before my first match. A few others like Mark Allen, John Higgins, Kyren Wilson and Jak Jones are playing with titanium so I wanted to try. It’s going to take six to eight weeks to get used to it. But one thing it has given me is that I know I have to concentrate harder – and that has worked so far.”

Evening matches

XI’AN GRAND PRIX DAY FOUR – EVENING

World Champion Kyren Wilson made a tremendous clearance in the deciding frame to beat Jimmy Robertson 5-4 in the last 16 of the Xi’an Grand Prix.

From 4-2 down, Wilson hit back to take the last three frames to book a quarter-final clash with Xu Si in China.

Robertson looked the stronger player as he made two breaks of 118 to forge ahead, but crucially missed a red on 27 when he had a chance to win 5-2. His opponent made 82 and 103 for 4-4, and after Robertson had run out of position at 51-0 in the last frame, Wilson punished him with 72.

“I was just trying to hang on to Jimmy, he played fantastic stuff today,” said the world number three. “From 4-2 down I just dug my heels in. When I got the chance in the last frame I just decided to go for it and move a red off the cushion so I could clear in one visit, I think that’s the confidence that being World Champion brings. Being on the TV table more often helps me get more comfortable as the tournament goes on. It has been a good run this week and I don’t want it to end.”

Ronnie O’Sullivan needed just 67 minutes to beat Hossein Vafaei 5-0. Breaks of 103 and 104 helped him set up a match with Matthew Selt.

Daniel Wells reached the fourth ranking event quarter-final of his career with a 5-1 victory over fellow Welshman Dominic Dale.

“When I played at the qualifiers in Leicester I was beyond poor so I had very little confidence coming here,” admitted Wells, whose top break was 61. “I changed a couple of small technical things on the practice table and seemed to find something. I have put a lot of hard work in and the aim is always to win a tournament.”

In many ways what happened yesterday on table one is very representative of Jimmy Robertson’s career. He’s a tremendous player, tremendously talented, but struggles to produce his best when under the highest pressure. Kyren Wilson is the opposite. He’s a very, very good player – of course he is – but there are many on tour with similar talent who never achieve what he does because they don’t have the same inner strength and work ethics

Here are the scores for Ronnie’s match:

Ronnie played well, especially before the MSI. For the first time this week he wasn’t on table 1. As a result, the World champion – who rightfully was on table 1 – played in front of a very meagre set of fans. It didn’t look great on the stream. It also goes on to show who puts bums on seats, and money in Matchroom’s banks account, that same money that allows to pay the less knows players … Ronnie is not perfect, far from it, he’s not always done or said the right things during his career, he’s ruffled some feathers, but ultimately that’s part of his persona, that’s part of the fascination he creates and every young lad who criticises him, before themselves have done anything of note, should remember what he brings to the sport and that, in part, they criticise their own wallet in the process.

This is what David hendon tweeted at the end of the match

And here some pictures of that match… shared by WST or on Weibo:

Here are the reports by WST on yesterday’s action in Xi’an

Afternoon session

XI’AN GRAND PRIX DAY THREE

Mark Allen, determined to enjoy his status as world number one, booked a place in the last 16 of the Xi’an Grand Prix with a 5-2 defeat of Xiao Guodong.

Northern Ireland’s Allen took top spot in the rankings for the first time at the end of last season, and hopes to hang on to that status for an extended period, but admits that his position is under threat from chaser Judd Trump. The pair could meet in the semi-finals this week, and if Trump wins the title then he will take over at the top.

Breaks of 112 and 133 put Allen 2-0 ahead today, and he later made 76 and 82 to lead 4-2. Xiao led 52-1 in frame seven before Allen made a tremendous 64 clearance, picking off several balls from awkward positions.

“I started the match well and closed it out with a nice clearance,” said Allen, who now meets going Barry Hawkins. “Xiao played well today, his safety was better than mine and if it had gone 4-3 it was anyone’s game.

“I have had a few weeks of practice now, plus matches in Shanghai and at the qualifiers, so I feel I’m in good shape for a run of big events. I’m always trying to find ways to improve, but this season I am not going to change too much, unless I have something glaring wrong with my technique. And I’ll try to enjoy it more because if you can’t enjoy being world number one then you’re in the wrong sport.

“There’s a long way to go, but if I did play Judd in the semi-finals it would be a great match. Being honest, at some point this season he will probably go ahead of me because I have a lot of points to defend from two years ago, and he doesn’t have as much coming off. But if I win tournaments that will keep me ahead.“

Shanghai Masters champion Trump made it seven wins out of seven so far this season as he beat Lyu Haotian 5-1 with runs of 61, 68. 94, 57 and 54.|

China’s Gong Chenzhi has impressed so far in his debut season and, having beaten Tom Ford 5-1 already, the 17-year-old saw off Si Jiahui 5-3 with top breaks of 98 and 92.

Mark Williams looked sharp in a 5-2 win over Chris Wakelin, compiling breaks of 61, 102, 91 and 101.

Crucible runner-up Jak Jones made an excellent 88 in the decider to edge out Jack Lisowski 5-4.

Evening session

Dominic Dale plans to retire at the end of this season despite an upturn in form over in recent months. The 52-year-old has climbed to 40th in the world and a superb 5-2 win over Shaun Murphy could help him continue his rise. 

“This is definitely my last season, I get a lot of aches and pains in my shoulder, and inflammation in my fingers,” said the Spaceman, who top scored with 96 as he earned a match with Daniel Wells. “It’s time to retire. It’s very difficult after 30 years to keep preparing for tournaments and playing matches, and having an opponent who is trying to take money out of your pocket. I’ll enjoy this season as much as I can. 

“I was supposed to fly home tomorrow and I had even packed my bags, so I’ll need to change my flight and unpack now!“

Mark Selby survived a final frame decider to beat Pang Junxu 5-4, while World Champion Kyren Wilson was a 5-3 victor against Ricky Walden.

Matthew Selt pulled away from 2-2 to beat Hammad Miah 5-2 with a top break of 75. 

DAY THREE HIGHLIGHTS

Ronnie did play, and score, much better yesterday than he had in his first two matches and it is great to hear him say that he wants more… Ronnie has had many mental struggles during his career, many ups and downs but he seems to be in a good place at the moment.

Here are the scores:

And some images shared on Weibo or by WST, including some “fisheye” images of the venue

This was published today by WST:

DRAW FOR SAUDI ARABIA SNOOKER MASTERS ANNOUNCED

The world’s best players have learned their fates, with the announcement of the draw for the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters.

Click here for the draw

The finest cueists on the planet will converge on Riyadh later this month to contest the sport’s fourth major. The event takes place from August 30th to September 7th. 

The Saudi Snooker Masters is part of the country’s investment to help grow the sport in the Kingdom and across the Middle East.  As well as hosting international events, the Saudi Billiard and Snooker Federation is investing in grass roots facilities, events and promotions to help inspire its young population into the sport.

…

The field includes 17 local wildcards nominated by the Saudi Arabian Billiard and Snooker Federation, including seven Saudi players. Their first round matches are:

Abdulraouf Saigh v Robbie McGuigan – Friday August 30th – 2pm
Faisal Bahashwan v Oliver Lines – Friday August 30th – 2pm
Saleh Alamoudi v Dean Young – Friday 30th August – Not Before 9pm
Abdullah Alotayyani v Ben Mertens – Friday 30th August – NB 3pm
Ziyad Alqabbani v Stan Moody – Friday 30th August – NB 9pm
Ayman Alamri v Haydon Pinhey – Friday 30th August – 8pm
Omar Alajlani v Rory Thor – Friday 30th August – 2pm

Other notable first round ties include all-time legend Jimmy White taking on United Arab Emirates’ Mohammed Shehab, while former World Champion Ken Doherty meets European Under-21 Champion Liam Davies.

The sport’s top 16 players, including seven-time World Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan, world number one Mark Allen, current World Champion Kyren Wilson and 28-time ranking event winner Judd Trump, will be in action from September 3rd .

Potential opening opponents for O’Sullivan include Hossein Vafaei and Joe Perry, while Trump could face the likes of close friend Jack Lisowski or Matthew Stevens.

World number two Trump said: “Everyone is really excited to have an opportunity to play in an event which compares with the World Championship. To have something so early on and not just rely on the World Championship at the end of the season is really good,” said 35-year-old Trump. 

“It is nice for everyone to be playing for big money and you feel that all the work you’ve put in over the years pays off if you do well. 

“There are more and more tournaments around the world. Now is the time where all eyes are on snooker and now is the time to expand and take tournaments to different places. It is great to be able to travel more doing what we love.”

The action will be broadcast live on Eurosport, Matchroom Live and a range of other broadcasters to be announced soon.

In total there will be 144 players in the field. The round structure is as follows:
Round one: Seeds 81-112 v seeds 113-144 (August 30th)
Round two: Those 32 winners v seeds 49-80 (August 31st)
Round three: Those 32 winners v seeds 17-48 (September 1st)
Round four: Those 32 winners play each other (September 2nd)
Round five: Those 16 winners v seeds 1-16 in the last 32 (September 3rd)

So this is how it looks … “left side of the draw”

… and “right side of the draw

I still have strong reservations regarding the Saudi Arabia political regime. I just hope that hosting big sporting event will put them under more and more international scrutiny, and that this, in turn, will lead to changes for better and fairer politics when it comes to human rights and women rights.

Here is WST report on day 2 at the 2024 Xi’an Grand Prix.

Kyren Wilson admits he has celebrated his World Championship victory so much that he needed a new waistcoat, but he’s now getting back into shape and continued his progress at the Xi’an Grand Prix with a 5-2 win over He Guoqiang to reach the last 32.

After a slow start to the season, failing to progress beyond his group in the Championship League then losing 6-0 to Zhou Yuelong at the Shanghai Masters, Wilson now looks to be finding his feet. He took a 2-1 lead today with a break of 72, then China’s He replied with a 101 for 2-2. The turning point came in frame five when He, last season’s Rookie of the Year, made 54 only for Wilson to reply with a 69 clearance. The Kettering ace added the next two frames to wrap up victory.

“As World Champion, people expect you to win all the time,” said the 32-year-old. “After I lost in Shanghai I went back home to my local town and people were asking ‘what happened?’ It doesn’t work like that, the standard on tour is so high. I don’t feel that I have to win titles this season to prove myself. I’ll keep doing the things I always do, working hard and preparing properly for events. 

“I have had some amazing experiences over the last few months, some of which I’ll remember for a lifetime, like taking the trophy to Stamford Bridge and to Great Ormond Street Hospital, and joining the Aston Martin F1 team at the British Grand Prix. I’ve also had to get a new waistcoat made having drunk far too much beer! I just wanted to enjoy the summer because it was such a buzz to win my first world title, for all of my family and friends. 

Performance of the day came from Shaun Murphy as he smashed Jamie Clarke 5-0 in 55 minutes with breaks of 103, 76, 100, 84 and 128.

“I need to make some inroads after what was terrible season last year,” said Murphy, who was runner-up at last month’s Shanghai Masters. “The end of season provisional list is bleak reading for me at the moment and I don’t want to have to go to the qualifiers for the World Championship. If I play like that, I might be ok. With this one and then the tournament in Saudi we have two huge money events and there will be a lot of movement in the rankings.”

Ronnie O’Sullivan booked his last 32 place with a 5-2 win over tour rookie Bulcsu Revesz. After losing the opening frame, O’Sullivan hit back to take five of the next six with runs of 78, 82, 57 and 65.

Mark Selby strolled to a 5-0 success over Aaron Hill with top breaks of 115 and 113, while world number one Mark Allen top scored with 131 as he beat David Lilley 5-1.

Neil Robertson needs a much improved season to get back into the top 16, but suffered a 5-2 reverse against Yuan Sijun.

Former World Champion Graeme Dott scored a fine 5-2 win over Zhang Anda with a top break of 102. Alfie Burden couldn’t build on last night’s win over Ding Junhui, as he lost 5-4 to Xu Si having let slip a 4-2 lead.

Ronnie scored better today. Here are the scores for his match:

And some images shared on Weibo …

I’m not sure how much the conditions contributed to this but both players appeared to feel the need to play with more power than I expected on many shots. Ronnie is a touch player and he tends to lose accuracy when playing with power. This certainly happened today but he wasn’t punished. Ronnie’s next opponent will be Yuan Sijun. I expected Neil Robertson … but his poor form seems to continue. It worrying really. That said, Yuan is a very good player, not to be underestimated.

As always, all the results are available on snooker.org

I’m quite happy to see Ricky Walden progress. Dominic Dale is also through to the last 32, after beating Noppon Saengkham.

Interestingly the afternoon “table 1” match featured Zhang Anda and Graeme Dott. Kyren Wilson, the reigning World Champion played during that same session… but then who gets the “main” table is decided by WST, with the promoters and broadcasters and Zhang is – was actually – the highest ranked Chinese player left in the draw.

Interestingly as well, the table 1 matches are available, in full, to watch on matchroom.live for those who missed them.

Ronnie beat Wang Yuchen by 5-0 in his first round match at the 2024 Xi’an Grand Prix.

Here are the scores for that match:

And the part of today’s WST report relevant to the match:

On the first day of the new Xi’an Grand Prix, Ronnie O’Sullivan thrilled local fans with a 5-0 whitewash of Wang Yuchen to reach the last 64.

This is the first tournament staged in the historic city of Xi’an in China’s Shaanxi Province and seven-time World Champion O’Sullivan is clearly a fan of the location. He said: “I have spent a couple of days here in Xi’an before. It has a beautiful atmosphere, you feel as if you are on a film set. It’s definitely one of my favourite cities. I come to China for the food, the culture and the people, if I do well at snooker that’s a bonus. It was a brilliant crowd and atmosphere today, this is probably one of the best tournaments of the season now.“

O’Sullivan, age 48, was well short of his best today, but breaks of 72 and 52 helped him to a comfortable victory as he set up a second round meeting with Bulcsu Revesz on Tuesday. Asked about his performance, he said: “My game has been terrible for two years. I am looking for a longer term plan to play the way I want to, I just have to keep showing up and trying my best.”

I’m not so sure that Ronnie played that badly. It is true that he didn’t score as heavily as he can and Wang Yuchen had his chances, but there were some very good things in Ronnie’s game today as well, notably the small a break he made to take frame three was really skilful and nice. Also, he applied himself 100%.

Conditions in China are often tricky, or, at least, quite different from what is the norm in the UK events. It’s quite hot currently in Xi’an, over 30 Centigrade during the day and tomorrow will bring heavy rain and thunderstorms.

Anyway… Ronnie is through to the last 64, where he will play Bulcsú Révész.

Here are some pictures shared by WST or posted on Weibo

And these came up on Twitter (yeah I know it’s X, but … no). I’m not too sure what he’s doing exactly but I’m not complaining… 😉

PS: Ronnie loves his food and once again said how much better it is in China than in the UK. I can only agree. But Greece or Italy aren’t bad either … plenty of nice, fresh fruit and vegetables, fish … and some sumptuous desserts… WST ???