The snooker action continued in Leicester yesterday with group 9 and group 28. As always, all the detailed results can be found on snooker.org by following the links above.

Here is the report by WST:

Wu And Walden Off The Mark

Wu Yize and Ricky Walden both earned their first wins of the season and topped their respective groups in the opening round of the BetVictor Championship League. 

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Three-time ranking event winner Walden lost in the qualifying rounds of both the Wuhan Open and British Open, and given that he lies 51st in the provisional end of season rankings, today’s success was much needed. 

He started Group 28 with a 3-1 win over Chang Bingyu, making breaks of 79 and 78. He then made a 143, the highest break of the tournament so far, during a 2-2 draw against Steven Hallworth. And Walden ensured top spot by beating Robert Milkins 3-1 in his final match, compiling runs of 121, 79 and 55. 

China’s Wu, who also lost his Wuhan Open qualifier, opened Group 9 with a 2-2 draw against Craig Steadman, helped by breaks of 94 and 92. He then beat both Kreishh Gurbaxani and Wang Yuchen 3-0 which gave him a total of seven points, level with Steadman on points but ahead on frame difference. 

Both Wu and Walden progress to the second stage, starting on July 18th, when 32 players will be battling for places in the third and final stage.  

The action in Leicester continues on Friday with Zhang Anda and Ng On Yee among the star names in action.

I’m quite happy with the outcome of these two groups although I was always going to be a bit sad for some of the players involved because there is only one winner in each group. Group 9 for instance featured Wu Yize at Wang Yuchen : I really like them both but only one of them could possibly go through, and, similarly, group 28 featured Ricky Walden and Steven Hallworth …