Roewe Shanghai Masters 2008: Day One – White Gains Wildcard Revenge

Day one in Shanghai and the first of the wildcard matches are now being completed. Click below to find out what has happened so far as the likes of Jimmy White, Ricky Walden, Judd Trump and Anthony Hamilton are in action this morning.

Jimmy White 5-2 Xiao Guodong

Jimmy White continued his excellent recent form by sealing a comfortable win against Xiao Guodong, the player who beat him 5-0 in the Northern Ireland Trophy qualifiers last season.

On what appeared to be quite a slow table, it was Jimmy who made the more confident start as 19-year-old Xiao looked to be nervous early on in front of his home crowd. Jimmy did need three clear opportunities but when in amongst the balls he looked to be potting well and sealed it in no time with a break of 51.

Xiao was to spent a bit more time in his (admittedly comfortable looking), seat in frame two as White made it 2-0 with a nice break of 102. Although he struggled to adapt to the pace of the table and left himself some tricky shots, Jimmy’s potting was in top form and got him out of jail on a number of occasions.

Finding himself two down in around just 25 minutes, Xiao needed to settle down quickly in order to prevent White from running away with it. Despite needing a few opportunities he was able to do so with a clearance of 54 as Jimmy still looked to be having a few problems with the pace of the table.

Xiao now looked to be gaining confidence and was first in at the start of frame three, but he could only make a break of 21 before running out of position. Jimmy soon managed to take advantage of this with a break of 67 to move into a 3-1 lead at the interval.

In frame five, a careless safety shot from White gave Xiao a chance to get back into it but he could not take it as he missed the opening red to the left-centre. This allowed White in to make a very nice break of 57 before he missed a relatively straightforward shot with the winning line in sight. The error was not to be a costly one however as another missed red to a middle pocket from Xiao allowed Jimmy to move just one frame away from the match at 4-1.

Although Xiao pulled one back in frame six it was only to delay the inevitable as White capitalised on a shocking miss from the Chinese player into the right centre to seal a 5-2 win.

It was a good performance from Jimmy and it is easy to see why he has done well in Prestatyn so far this season. He missed a couple of easy balls and his positional play wasn’t flawless, but in general he cued well and as looked as confident around the table as I have seen him in a couple of years. Next up for him is a clash with Mark King in what should be a close match.

Best of the rest:

In the non-televised matches the most impressive result was to come from recent Belgian Open winner Ricky Walden who eased past young wildcard Anda Zhang in little over an hour and a half. The in-form world number 35 now goes on to meet seven-times world champion Stephen Hendry in what should be an interesting match. If Hendry’s performance in the Premier League last week was anything to go by then Walden will surely fancy his chances of causing an upset.

By far the closest match of the morning was that involving Bristol’s Judd Trump who was pushed all the way by A Bulajiang. Eventually winning 67-53 in the deciding frame, the 19 year old will be both delighted and relieved to be into the next round where he faces Mark Selby.

The longest match of the morning was the one involving Anthony Hamilton and 15 year old Chinese player Li Yan who took over two hours to complete the first two frames. Eventually at 4-1 to Anthony the players were called off to make way for the evening session and they will finish off their match later today.

I will be hoping to report on the match between Liang Wenbo and Atthasit Mahitthi which starts 90 minutes from now but until then, keep an eye on GSC for the latest live scores.

Click here to see my post on the wildcards playing today.