Day three of the German Masters qualifiers and it was a good one for Chinese trio Yu Delu, Liu Chuang and Liu Song who all moved to within just one match of a place in Berlin at the venue stage with wins today. Hoping to make it four is Xiao Guodong who at the time of writing is locked at 2-2 with Michael White in a high standard match, three centuries in four frames so far…
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China’s Liu Song booked his spot in he final round of the German Masters qualifiers today with an excellent 5-3 victory against Rory McLeod. With top breaks of 131 and 101, Liu now moves on to a match against Fergal O’Brien tomorrow for a place in the last 32.
There were also wins for Yu Delu and Liu Chuang against Alfie Burden and Liang Wenbo respectively. An impressive win for Liu in particular, given Liang’s form over the past year or so, how soon will it be before Liu or another of the talented group of Chinese players on the tour overtake him to become the country’s number two player?
Elsewhere, Jamie Jones continued his bid for a place in Berlin with an excellent 5-2 victory against PTC3 winner Ben Woollaston. With a top break of 137, he will now meet Andrew Higginson in the last 48.
Having recently qualified for the UK Championship following his relegation from the top 16, Stephen Hendry will this week have to defeat Thailand’s James Wattana if he is to book his place in Germany following Wattana’s 5-1 win against Andrew Pagett today. Having met on a number of occasions during their 1990’s heyday, it will be interesting to see how they get on in 2011 as their rivalry is renewed.
Two veteran players maintaining their recent run of improved form were Mike Dunn and Adrian Gunnell and both did so impressively with 5-0 whitewashes against Adam Wicheard and Jimmy Robertson respectively. Mike’s reaction on Twitter spoke volumes for how he is feeling about his game at the moment:
“1 month ago i didn’t want to play again, at the moment I feel and am playing incredible #dontstopmenowcosiamhavingsuchagoodtime”
Meanwhile, the action goes on tonight with five more matches to be played and predictably the match between Michael White and Xiao Guodong is proving to be a cracker, three breaks of exactly 100 coming in the first four frames…