Yesterday was the last day of the 2024 Scottish Open “qualifiers”.

Here is the report by WST:

BETVICTOR SCOTTISH OPEN QUALIFIERS DAY THREE

Former Crucible king Graeme Dott is through to the final stages of the BetVictor Scottish Open thanks to a 4-2 win over Jiang Jun in the last qualifying round.

Larkhall’s Dott will be in Edinburgh in December thanks to a hard fought win over China’s Jiang. Breaks of 60 and 79 helped Dott build a 3-0 lead, then he saw that advantage cut to 3-2 before sealing the result with a run of 77 in frame six.

Alexander Ursenbacher followed up his 4-3 first round win over Michael Holt by beating Ben Woollaston by the same scoreline. From 2-0 down, Switzerland’s Ursenbacher took four of the last five frames with top breaks of 137 and 76. 

China’s Lei Peifan top scored with 97 in a 4-1 win over Dominic Dale, while Jackson Page enjoyed a 4-1 victory over Jimmy White. Pakistan’s Farakh Ajaib scored a 4-1 success against Elliot Slessor while Stan Moody recorded a 4-2 victory over Tian Pengfei.

Daniel Wells’ break of 112 during a 4-0 rout of Rory Thor was his 100th career century. Jamie Jones came from 3-2 down to edge out Oliver Lines 4-3, making breaks of 62 and 51 in the last two frames.

The final stages at the Meadowbank Centre in Edinburgh run from December 9-15.

All the detailed results are available on snooker.org as is the main event draw.

As usual there are some strange omissions in this report …

• 21 years old Ma Hailong, who is in his second year of his first tour card had a useful 4-1 win over Matthew Stevens
• Yuan Sijun beat Bulcsú Révész by 4-2 from 0-2 down. I watched that match. It was a close, hard-fought affair. Frame 5 was the frame that sealed it really. Bulcsú was in front in that one and losing it hit him hard.
• 19 years old Xing Zihao beat Anthony Hamilton by 4-1. Anthony isn’t the player he was but he remains a very shrewd competitor. Xing is also in the second year of his first tour card and he needs points.
• David Grace beat Ashley Carty by 4-1. Both need points being currently ranked 63 and 66 respectively.
• Ian Burns had a good 4-2 win over Martin O’Donnell. Martin won the close frames. Ian scored breaks of 79, 56 and 55 during the match.
• Matthew Selt was in high scoring mood during his 4-0 win over Cheung Ka Wai. He made a break over 50 in every frame (63, 74, 72, 51). During the first three frames Cheung only scored 9 points in total!

In other news …

As reported by Kalacs in comments, Ronnie has arrived in Hong Kong where he will play an exhibition with Jak Jones. Therefore, I do expect him to play in the International championship next week.