Following Andrew Higginson’s loss to Tian Pengfei this morning, Gerard Greene has become the second tour player to lose out to one of the local wildcards, while World Games champion Nigel Bond narrowly avoided becoming the third. A word of thanks to dreamboy who has blogged regarding this morning’s matches as you will have seen…
Wildcard Round
Gerard Greene 4-5 Li Yan
65(40)-24, 108(75)-1, 80(42)-31, 0-86(55), 34-57(36), 90-44(40), 0-84(71), 66-71(60), 14-63(33)
Nigel Bond 5-4 Yu Delu
85(58)-46, 81(81)-0 (10 red/blk), 66(49)-60, 8-67(65), 25-68(45), 71(64c)-68, 25-62, 2-91(84), 67(49)-65(38)
Matthew Selt 5-0 Shi Hanqing
80(80)-13, 128(128)-0, 86-55, 120(104)-16, 89(73)-9
Last 48
Liang Wenbo 5-2 David Gilbert
22-77(43), 137(51,82)-0, 61-16, 13-58, 93(40)-38, 75(74)-0, 69(42c)-63(63)
Congratulations to Li Yan who has recorded what is a very good win against Gerard Greene, one of the world’s top 32 players. Even more impressively Li had to recover from an early 3-0 deficit, not an easy task against anyone in a best of nine match, let alone someone of Greene’s quality.
After that initial run from Gerard though, a break of 55 before the mid-session interval kept Li in the match before further breaks of 36, 40, 71, 60 and finally 33 secured a famous win. His reward will be tough clash with former Shanghai finalist Ryan Day, another big step up but bigger upsets have happened…
It is a disappointing result for Gerard however as though he does not lose any ranking points as a result of this defeat, it is never nice to lose out so early having travelled so far for the event. He will now have to regroup for the Grand Prix qualifiers later this month.
Nigel Bond’s trip to the far east was almost as futile but eventually he came through in a thrilling conclusion to what was a tight match all-round to defeat Yu Delu. As well as a missed maximum attempt from Nigel the contest saw no fewer than three frames that finished with just six or less points in it and one of these was the decider which Nigel eventually won 67-65.
Next up for Nigel now will be a clash with another Asian player, world number eight Marco Fu in a match that may be closer than most would envisage. Marco has played well during the last year but as ever he has still suffered from inconsistency and lost a few matches that he is expected to win. Could this be another?
The final two matches of the day saw Matt Selt easily come through against Shi Hanqing to book his first last 32 match as a professional player against John Higgins, and importantly Liang Wenbo beat David Gilbert to book his spot.
I say importantly because not only will he have wanted to make it into the first round proper to perform in front of his home fans, but this was of course not a wildcard match and so the only clash to carry ranking event points today. Incidentally my provisional rankings page will be updated throughout this week and should be 100% accurate having had some help with a suitable spreadsheet this week!
Awaiting Liang in the next round now will be Peter Ebdon, a man who Liang of course beat 5-0 in the opening event of last season…