Mark Williams pulled away from 2-2 to beat Andres Petrov 5-2 and qualify for the final stages of the Wuhan Open.
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Estonia’s top player Petrov made a break of 90 as he came from 2-0 down to 2-2, but three-time Crucible king Williams took the last three frames with a top run of 59 and he’ll be heading to China for the final stages of this new world ranking event next month.
BetVictor European Masters champion Barry Hawkins extended his winning streak with a 5-1 defeat of Louis Heathcote, compiling runs of 76, 77 and 75. Jack Lisowski needed just 56 minutes to beat Jenson Kendrick 5-0, firing breaks of 108, 61, 81 and 97.
Jamie Jones came from 3-1 and 4-3 down to beat Liam Pullen 5-4, making a break of 70 in the decider. Pang Junxu top scored with 100 in a 5-1 win over Stan Moody.
Ishpreet Singh Chadha continued his impressive start to his debut pro season as he edged out Anthony McGill 5-4. The Indian cueman made a 105 earlier in the match, and in a tense deciding frame he converted excellent pots on the blue, pink and black to snatch victory.
This will be short one as I’m on the road today…
As usual a lot of matches are “ignored” in the above report. You will find all the results on snooker.org
The McGill v Singh Chadha match is the only one I followed from start to finish yesterday. It was an excellent match and Singh Chadha totally deserved the win. Snooker was born in India, and we had some very good players from India in the past, notably Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta. They should have done better but the truth is that they didn’t settle in the UK, Pankaj in particular was very unhappy, terribly homesick and eventually he decided that it wasn’t worth it. Singh Chadha has a lot of potential. Let’s hope that he can be happy and adapts to this new life, so very different from what he’s used to in his country.
Robert Milkins and Stuart Bingham were among the victors on day two of qualifying for the Wuhan Open, earning places in the final stages of the new world ranking event to take place in China next month.
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Welsh Open champion Milkins saw off Zak Surety 5-2 with a top break of 52, while former Crucible king Bingham fired runs of 70, 73, 92 and 78 in a 5-3 success against James Cahill.
Aaron Hill made the highest break of his career so far, 145, as he scored a superb 5-0 victory over Joe Perry. The Irish youngster also compiled runs of 64 and 89.
Sanderson Lam continued his fine start to the season as he beat Tian Pengfei 5-3 with a top break of 132. Stuart Carrington knocked in breaks of 107, 111, 79 and 54 as he beat Fan Zhengyi 5-1.
Fan Zhengyi never really settled as Stuart Carrington played very well and kept him cold for most of their match. It was pretty much “one mistake will cost you the frame” type of game. Fan made a 98 in the only frame he won. The last frame was the only one that didn’t feature a break over 50.
No mention in the above report on Cao Yupeng blitz 50 victory over his young compatriot Jian Jung. Although Cao’s AST wasn’t particularly impressive – nearly 27 second per shot this was a very fast match.
Regarding the Sanderson Lam match this happened in the last frame: Tian led by 51-34 with only the colours left. Lam snookered him behind the black and Tian failed to escape 12 times, after which he needed snookers.
Hammad Miah beat Andy Hicks by 5-3. This was a good match. Both players were fluent and they scored well: breaks of 88 and 61 for Hicks, 53,91, 51 and 73 for Miah.
No mention either of Yuan Sijun’s 5-1 win over Ross Muir. Yuan had 4 breaks over 50 in that match, Muir had none.
Elliot Slessor inflicted a 50 defeat to David Lilley, restricting his opponent to just 78 points in total.
Martin O’Donnell beat David Grace by 5-2. It was 2-2 at the MSI and, at that point, David had been the heaviest scorer of the two, with a couple of breaks over 50. Martin though won all three after the MSI, with a couple of breaks over 50 of his own. That match had no rhythm and that probably suited Martin more than David as he’s a rather slow cautious player naturally.
Two matches were pulled off as they over-ran.
Zhang Anda beat Ahmed Aly Elsayed, Americas’ Champion, by 5-3 from 0-3 down. It was actually a very close match. Ahmed is a very methodical player with an AST over 36 seconds. The match was pulled off at 4-3 to Zhang.
The last match to finish – 13 minutes past midnight in Leicester, 2:13 am at my place – saw Xu Si beat Anton Kasakov by 5-3 from 2-3 down when the match was pulled off. The score at that point could have been worse for Xu: indeed Xu required snookers on multiple occasions in frame 2 but eventually won it on a re-spotted black. Anton, is only 18, from Ukraine, but somehow his style of play reminds me of players from the past … a very past past actually. He can score – he had a 103 and a 74, the only two breaks over 50 in the match – but he’s very, very slow with an AST over 42 seconds! He tends to be quite defensive as well. It’s bizarre considering how young he is.
Neil Robertson became only the fourth player in snooker history to make 900 career centuries, during a 5-0 win over fellow Australian Ryan Thomerson in the qualifying round of the Wuhan Open.
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Robertson, age 41, joins Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins and Judd Trump as the only players to cross the 900 milestone. His break came in the fifth and final frame as he compiled a 137 total clearance. Earlier, the world number six narrowly missed a century in frame three, failing to pot a red to centre on 95.
He goes through to the final stages of the new Wuhan Open ranking event, to take place next month in China. Mark Allen also booked his place as he top scored with 109 in a 5-3 win over John Astley.
China’s He Guoqiang edged out Kyren Wilson 5-4 in a high quality match which featured three centuries and four more breaks over 50. At 4-3 down, Wilson made a 122 to level and he then led 66-4 in the decider, only for his opponent to make a tremendous 64 clearance. Wu Yize also earned a spot in his home event with a 5-3 win over Allan Taylor.
Ashley Carty, a quarter-finalist at last week’s BetVictor European Masters, came from 3-2 down to beat Gary Wilson 5-3 with a top break of 98.
Mark Selby eased to a 5-0 success against Andy Lee, knocking in breaks of 75, 106 and 57.
Of course 900 centuries is a great achievement and a milestone to celebrate, especially for Neil Robertson who loves his centuries 😊 … but it’s only one frame. The highlight of the day – for me – yesterday was the match between Kyren Wilson and He Guoquiang. Kyren will find it hard to get over that one. Indeed he was leading by 66-0 with 67 on the table when he found himself out of position. He played safe. He played a good shot, leaving He snookered. What happened next was quite extraordinary and cruel for Kyren: He failed to hit a red on his way “down” (as we look) but hit one on his way back to baulk. That accidental contact sent the cue ball towards the middle pocket, hit the jaws, was deflected towards the center of the table … leaving Kyren nastily snookered by the blue. Kyren failed to escape the snooker and, worse, left his opponent in the balls. The four points penalty meant the He now could win without needing only blacks with the remaining reds. The young man held his nerves and a very good 64 earned him the victory. As much as I felt sorry for Kyren, I also could only admire how well He handled the situation. He had played impressively well all match as well.
Again, so many matches are missing from the above report…
Alfie Burden beat Robbie Williams by 5-0, scoring four breaks over 50 in the process. To me, Alfie is one of the big underachievers in snooker. Too often his emotions got the better of him. Noppon Saenghkam beat Andrew Higginson by 5-3, Joe O’Connor beat Dean Young by 5-0 (a rather surprising score line), Ben Woollaston beat Oliver Brown by 5-2 and Jackson Page got the batter of Liu Hongyu by 5-3.
In other news…
This video emerged on social media, with Ronnie reiterating that China will be his priority for the rest of his career … and highly praises Si Jiahui.
The International Championship returns to the calendar for the first time since 2019, with the first round draw as well as the match schedule for the qualifying round now available.
The qualifying round will run from September 18-23 in Sheffield, followed by the final stages in Tianjin City, China from November 5-12.
The International Championship was first staged in 2012 when Judd Trump lifted the trophy, and he won it again in 2019. In between, Ding Junhui, Ricky Walden, John Higgins, Mark Selby and Mark Allen all held the title.
Trump will get his title defence underway against the winner of a match between two local wild cards, with those matches to take place at the final venue. Matches involving the other two local wild cards will also be held over to Tianjin, as well as:
Ronnie O’Sullivan v Ken Doherty Zhou Yuelong v Martin O’Donnell Ding Junhui v Ian Burns Luca Brecel v Ahmed Aly Elsayed
All other opening ties will take place at the qualifying round, including:
John Higgins v Manasawin Phetmalaikul Kyren Wilson v Adam Duffy Mark Selby v Muhammad Asif Tian Pengfei v Stephen Hendry Barry Hawkins v Andrew Pagett Matthew Selt v Jimmy White Mark Allen v Ma Hailong Si Jiahui v Julien LeClercq Jack Lisowski v He Gouqiang Neil Robertson v Ryan Thomerson Shaun Murphy v Andres Petrov Mark Williams v Rebecca Kenna Hossein Vafaei v Reanne Evans
Details of how to watch the qualifying rounds will be announced soon.
International Championship prize money:
Winner: £175,000 Runner-up: £75,000 Semi-finals: £33,000 Quarter-finals: £22,000 Last 16: £14,000 Last 32: £9,000 Last 64: £5,000 High break: £5,000 Total: £825,000
Ronnie has exactly the same opponent as for the Wuhan Open, Ken Doherty. Neil Robertson is in the same situation, he gets Ryan Thomerson again. Also, except for minor differences induced by the fact that the events have different defending champions, the top 64 seeds are all in the exact same spot in both draws. Meaning that, should they all win their round one match, from round two those two draws are quasi identical. Is there a strict seeding policy for those Chinese events? Was it always the case? I can’t remember.
WST have yesterday published the draw and the qualifiers format for the 2023 English Open
BetVictor English Open Draw
The 2023/24 BetVictor Home Nations series gets underway with the BetVictor English Open, with the first round draw as well as the match schedule for the qualifying round now available.
The qualifying round runs from September 6-8 in Leicester*, followed by the final stages
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Matches involving the top 16 seeds will be held over to the final venue in Brentwood. These are:
Defending champion Mark Selby v Xing Zihao Ryan Day v Ashley Hugill John Higgins v Marco Fu Kyren Wilson v Oliver Lines Judd Trump v Sean O’Sullivan Robert Milkins v Robbie Williams Barry Hawkins v Anthony Hamilton Mark Allen v Mostafa Dorgham Ronnie O’Sullivan v Andrew Pagett Jack Lisowski v Matthew Stevens Ali Carter v Jamie Clarke Neil Robertson v Sanderson Lam Shaun Murphy v Liu Hongyu Mark Williams v Ian Burns Ding Junhui v Ma Hailong Luca Brecel v Stan Moody
The two English amateur wild cards, Ryan Davies and Bradley Cowdroy, will also go head to head at the Essex venue, with the winner to face Elliot Slessor in the first round.
Notable matches in the qualifying round include Stephen Hendry v Fergal O’Brien, Jimmy White v Joe O’Connor, Gary Wilson v Pang Junxu, Ricky Walden v Jordan Brown, Ken Doherty v Jackson Page and Si Jiahui v Alexander Ursenbacher.
Once again the WST selection of “notable” matches leaves me wondering, although it is a better one than their Wuhan’s qualifiers. For me the Hendry v O’Brien match is totally uninteresting baring a Hendry miracle. There are more intriguing matches IMO and those are my pick:
Barry Hawkins x Anthony Hamilton – two very shrewd players
Sam Craigie v Michael White – two who were once “hot prospects” but haven’t quite evolved as hoped
Jack Lisowski v Matthew Stevens – two who can be brilliant but have often disappointed
The draw for the new Wuhan Open has been made, with first round ties including World Champion Luca Brecel against China’s Xing Zihao, and former Crucible kings Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ken Doherty going head to head.
The qualifying round* will run from September 1-5 in Leicester, followed by the final stages from October 9-15 in the city of Wuhan in central China’s Hubei province.
The Wuhan Open will be the first ranking event staged in mainland China since 2019, and it will be one of three ranking events in China during the 2023/24 season, alongside the International Championship and World Open. These will follow the invitational Shanghai Masters, to take place in September.
Brecel’s match against Xing and O’Sullivan’s clash with Doherty will be held over to the final final venue, along with the matches involving the four local wild cards, as well as the top two ranked Chinese players. Ding Junhui will take on Ashley Hugill, while Zhou Yuelong has been drawn against World Women’s Champion Baipat Siripaporn.
Notable matches in the qualifying round include:
Iran’s Hossein Vafaei v Hong Kong’s Marco Fu John Higgins v Dylan Emery Mark Selby v Hong Kong’s Andy Lee Judd Trump v Lukas Kleckers Mark Allen v John Astley An Australian derby between Neil Robertson and Ryan Thomerson Shaun Murphy v Ben Mertens Mark Williams v Andres Petrov
Details of how to watch the qualifying rounds will be announced soon.
Wuhan Open Prize Money Winner: £140,000 Runner-up: £63,000 Semi-finals: £30,000 Quarter-finals: £16,000 Last 16: £12,000 Last 32: £8,000 Last 64: £4,500 High break: £5,000 Total: £700,000
There is an interesting change of format here with only the World Champion and the World Number 1 guaranteed to have their matches held-over at the venue. Other than the top Chinese players, the rest have to hope to be drawn against a wildcard. It’s probably a good idea as the first two days in China were often absolutely hectic and, of course, because the Chinese fans deserve to be able to watch “their ” players live.
Apparently WST definition for “Notable match” is basically that it features a top player. There are at least three matches in that list above that I see as totally uninteresting because they will almost certainly be heavily one-sided.
Stephen Hendry hails ‘sponge’ Ronnie O’Sullivan: ‘A lot of it goes over my head’
Phil Haigh Tuesday 8 Aug 2023 3:50 pm
Ronnie O’Sullivan has been labelled ‘a massive snooker geek’ (Picture: PA)
Ronnie O’Sullivan’s sponge-like qualities have been hailed by his fellow seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry, who admitted he has struggled to be coached over his career.
O’Sullivan and Hendry are widely considered the two greatest snooker players of all-time, sharing the record for most Crucible titles and with the Scot (36) only behind the Englishman (39) on the all-time list of ranking title wins.
They have had very different careers, though, with Hendry’s seven Crucible crowns coming between 1990-99, while the Rocket’s have spanned 2001-22 and he still remains in contention to add more to his CV.
There are also plenty of differences in their games, with Hendry noting that he succeeded when doing everything his natural, instinctive way and felt that some coaching may have cost him later in his career, while O’Sullivan soaked up positive aspects for his game.
Speaking to Michael Holt about coaching and technique on his Cue Tips channel, Hendry said: ‘I couldn’t tell you one thing technically. I’ve had four coaches in my career and each time it’s like, “do I really understand that?” A lot of it goes over my head.
‘I sometimes think, would I have been alright without…I had my first coach Frank Callan because I didn’t think my long game was good enough to compete with the likes of Steve [Davis]. I could pot balls obviously, but [couldn’t] consistently rely on my long game.
‘So he brought a pause into my backswing, but I don’t know whether…I got deceleration at the end of my career, I call it the yips, and I don’t know if that came from the pause.
‘[O’Sullivan] He’s like a sponge, he takes things in from everywhere.’
Holt, a ranking event winner who now works as a snooker coach, said one of O’Sullivan’s great traits is his ability to learn from others, but only take what is a positive to his own game and ignore anything that could hamper him.
‘Ronnie’s a massive snooker geek, he knows everything. He’s like a robot,’ said the Hitman.
‘What he’s amazing at is disregarding the stuff that he’s not interested in and trusting what he believes in and then he just goes out there and plays, which is a talent in itself.
‘Ultimately that’s why he’s played for so long because he knows everything about his game.
‘I think that’s where the next level might come from, players will be more aware of what they do and how they do it. Disregard the myths.’
It is interesting that Hendry appears to believe that coaching might actually have damaged his game.
Anyway … Ronnie, it seems, has decided to share his experience and, whilst he’s not coaching, he has been working with a huge team on “The Rocket Method”…
The Rocket Method™ will be the premium online snooker training program, taught by the greatest player of all time, Ronnie O’Sullivan.
With our course, you’ll be set to truly understand and learn snooker.
We have also hired Oscar-nominated filmmaker Gregg Helvey to provide a stunning production quality, so that you can enjoy the learning process.
Despite these immense costs, it was important to us to price the offering so that it remains well within the affordability of the majority of snooker fans.
Thanks.
Alan McManus is strongly involved in this project as well.
Now … in another “cuetips” podcast, Hendry was asked if it’s worth investing yourself in top sports if you don’t have an exceptional talent and his answer was quite short and clear: NO.
I agree but that doesn’t mean though that you should not invest in an activity or sport you like and enjoy, it’s always good and satisfying to learn and try improving. But also, you have to know and accept your own limitations. I, for instance, know that I wouldn’t benefit from this at all because I’m utterly useless at anything that requires hand-eye coordination, having a poor eyesight and being one of those lefties who were forced into using predominantly their right hand back in the days (1).
Bai Yulu wins in Russia…
Bai Yulu has won the Russian “15-Reds” International Championship, beating home favourite Ivan Kakovskii 4-2 in the final. There were 32 competitors from 10 countries. The event was played in Tyumen, Siberia, from 24-28 August. (source Lewis Pirnie on twitter). Lewis also added: For details, and videos of some matches, see: https://bill4you.ru/en/snooker/tournament/item?id=1587
The above images were shared on Weibo by Ba Yulu herself.
Congratulations Bai Yulu!
Thankfully such practices are rare nowadays. No level of constraint or violence will change your brain wiring. ↩︎
