This is WST report on day 2 at the 2024 International Championship:
ROBERTSON SET FOR NANJING
Australia’s Neil Robertson scored a 6-1 win over Alfie Burden at International Championship qualifying in Sheffield to secure his place in the final stages.
The Thunder from Down Under is enjoying a return to form, having slid out of the world’s top 16 last season. He scored a first tournament win in over two years at the recent English Open, where he beat Wu Yize 9-7 in the final. That triumph has seen the 2010 World Champion move back to 16th in the rankings.
Today’s win took just one hour and 45 minutes, with Robertson taking four frames on the bounce from 2-1. His top score of 100 came in the clinching frame.
Last week’s British Open champion Mark Selby scored a 6-3 win over Latvia’s Artemijs Zizins to earn his qualification. The Jester from Leicester made an sublime 143 in the fourth frame, which saw him rack up a mammoth 155 points.
China’s world number 77 Jiang Jun scored a 6-3 upset win over 2023 World Champion Luca Brecel. The impressive performance saw Jiang craft back-to-back century runs of 113 and 104 in the opening two frames.
Shaun Murphy scored a 6-4 win over Louis Heathcote, while Barry Hawkins was a 6-1 victor against Joshua Thomond.
All the detailed results are on snooker.org, as always.
As always also, a lot of matches have been overlooked in the above report. Yesterday offered us a lot of close interesting, and at times heartbreaking, matches. Most of those “overlooked” quality matches involved an Asian player… just saying.
- Jimmy Robertson beat Sunny Akani by 6-5 in a very hard fought and very high quality match. It’s a shame really that one of them had to lose. Sunny found himself 4-0 down. He battled back to force a decider … that he lost 💔. The match featured two centuries and eight more break over 50. Really it deserved to be at least mentioned in the official report … but no.
- It was a similar story between Lyu Haotian and Marco Fu. Lyu trailed 5-2, came back to force a decider … that he lost. Marco scored a 135 break in that match.
- Zhou Yuelong and Michael Holt also served us a thriller. Michael won the match by 6-5. Zhou made a break over 70 in each of the five frames he won and still lost the match. Michael scored the highest break of the match, a 116, in frame 6.
- Gong Chenzhi, who only turned eighteen nine days ago, beat Jordan Brown by 6-4. He also scored the only century of the match, a 106.
- Sanderson Lam beat Alex Ursenbacher by 6-5. Sanderson Lam won two consecutive frames , frames 6 and 7, on re-spotted blacks.
- Amir Sarkhosh, the rookie from Iran, beat the vastly experienced David Lilley by 6-3. Interestingly, Amir won most of the close frames.
Regarding the matches covered in WST reports … here is what I wish to add:
- Artemijs Zizins lost by 6-3 but did show some very good things in defeat. It wasn’t a case of him playing badly at all. Selby was truly excellent.
- I have often been irritated by WST constant focus on Stan Moody. Well … yesterday he won. He beat Tom Ford convincingly, by 6-2 … and he was overlooked. Don’t ask! Stan won the last two frames of the match. They were close frames. Clearly he’s maturing and his game evolves to become more “complete”.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Perhaps WST took notice of your criticism by not mentioning Stan Moody! He played very well, but was helped by Ford, who has no confidence.
I was there for the whole day, and witnessed some eventful matches. Lyu Haotian actually won the last 4 frames, despite not being at his best. Marco Fu seemed to run out of steam.
Gong Chenzhi potted a great respotted black… but went in-off. No matter, he overpowered Jordan Brown. The Sunny Akani-Jimmy Robertson match was very free-flowing, and could have gone either way. I also saw a fine 72 by Baipat, but she still lost 6-1.
I was pleased WST commented that Jiang Jun won, rather than Luca Brecel lost. If Brecel’s plan was to play an open game and outscore his teenage opponent, it didn’t work. Jiang just potted everything. There was a shaky part in the middle where Brecel might have taken control, but wasn’t able to – including a frame where he got 3 snookers but couldn’t close it out.
The evening matches were much less appealing. Robert Milkins is going through something similar to Tom Ford.
>I was pleased WST commented that Jiang Jun won, rather than Luca Brecel lost. If Brecel’s plan was to play an open game and outscore his teenage opponent, it didn’t work.
LOL, Brecel said he enjoys being non-champion and he does a great job of it to prolong the joy. 🙂