Today marks the penultimate day of the UK Championship qualifiers and importantly, the start of the final qualifying round as the remaining 32 players stand just one win away from Telford…
Morning Session:
Ken Doherty looked to build on his run to the semi-finals of the recent Masters qualifiers this morning and made a good start, moving 6-2 ahead of Liu Chuang going into tonight’s final session. Liu never really got going but breaks of 54, 78 and a final 80 to finish the session helped Ken on his way, hopefully from his point of view to a tie with Graeme Dott next week in Telford.
Fresh off the back of his impressive win over Ricky Walden yesterday, Mark Davis put himself into a good position to cause another upset tonight as he leads the struggling Nigel Bond 6-2 after the morning session. Nigel has had something of a revival over the last couple of years but 2008/9 has been a disaster so far as he has failed to win a single match. His lack of confidence was evident as he went 3-1 down at the mid-session interval and at 6-2, has a mountain to climb if he is to see Telford.
Another player going through something of a tough spell is former world champion Mark Williams who has lost his last two matches in ranking events, but he put himself into a good position today as he moved 5-3 ahead of Gerard Greene after the morning session. From 1-4 though, Gerard will probably be happy to have got it back that scoreline as he could have been out of the match going into tonight, but as it is he still has every chance…
Dave Harold 4-3 Rory McLeod 4-108(63), 24-70(45), 20-66(55), 55-51, 101(70)-0, 72(72)-0
Mark Williams 5-3 Gerard Greene 73(40)-20, 1-86(58), 68-20, 65-0, 81(52)-47, 8-71, 55-59, 51-47
Nigel Bond 2-6 Mark Davis 38-73, 46-63, 26-54, 108(62)-9, 1-75, 62-1, 1-66(66), 22-60
Ken Doherty 6-2 Liu Chuang 66(54)-6, 46-64, 78(78)-0, 64-0, 80-14, 32-71, 93-25, 80(80)-30
Dominic Dale 5-3 Martin Gould 65-41, 1-66, 58(53)-22, 92(51)-0, 47-54, 97(93)-0, 66-43, 39-78
Stuart Bingham 6-2 Jimmy Michie 78(38)-1, 68-39, 58-66, 1-64, 85(68)-5, 64-50, 57-10, 62-17
Afternoon Session:
This afternoon saw a couple of dominant performances put in by Matthew Stevens and Ian McCulloch who at 7-1 up will just need two more frames against Marcus Campbell and Joe Delaney respectively.
The match between Alan McManus and Barry Hawkins was somewhat closer however as Barry just came out of the session with a 5-3 lead. Should be an interesting finish to this match tomorrow as Hawkins is enjoying his best campaign since the 2005/6 season, while Alan is also finding some form with his new cue and I can see it going all the way.
Also delicately poised is the match between Nottingham’s Anthony Hamilton and Andrew Higginson which currently stands at 4-3 to Higginson, though this tells only half of the story. In fact Andrew started brilliantly to soar into a 4-0 lead, but Anthony used all his experience to hang in there and got himself back into the match by taking the final three frames before they had to come off for the 7pm starts. Will Higginson regretting letting his big lead slip I wonder…
Evening Session:
Mark Davis carried on where he left off this morning by taking the first three frames of the evening to complete a 9-2 victory over Nigel Bond tonight. A couple of scrappy frames sandwiched an excellent 101, Mark’s third century of the week and he now moves on to face Joe Perry in Telford next week.
Former world champions Ken Doherty and Mark Williams were soon to follow him as they secured good wins over Liu Chuang and Gerard Greene respectively. Ken resumed at 6-2 up and looked like he would win in no time as he took the first two frames of the night, highlighted by a 91 break to move one away at 8-2. Liu though did show some fight and took the next two frames to make it interesting, but he had left himself too much to do and Ken made the last 32 of a ranking event for the first time since the Northern Ireland Trophy. Next up for him will be a match with Graeme Dott, an interesting one between two out of form players.
Williams meanwhile edged Gerard Greene 9-7 in what was a tense, close match all day long. A break of 73 though was enough to take him over the line and sets up an intriguing tie with Mark Selby in the last 32. After his defeats to Simon Bedford and Judd Trump in the last two ranking events, it is a timely boost for Mark as he looks to seal a place in the top 16 once again.
The shock result of the night came from Martin Gould who recovered from 5-3 down against the higher ranked Dominic Dale to beat the Welshman 9-6 tonight. He did not produce any really huge breaks but it was his ability to consistently knock in half-centuries and always have Dominic under pressure that did it. This means that he has qualified for the last 32 of an event for the first time since the Northern Ireland Trophy last season and will now meet the struggling Shaun Murphy at the TV venue.