Tuesday has seen the bottom half of the draw do battle at the PTC10 event in Sheffield and already there have been shocks with the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Ding Junhui, Mark Davis and Peter Ebdon among those to exit in the early stages. Not to mention a magical maximum from Ricky Walden…
Fresh from their appearances in the final of the Premier League on Sunday evening, both Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ding Junhui were to suffer early defeats in this week’s PTC10 event with defeats to Sam Baird and Cau Yupeng respectively. A promising young player with an old head on young shoulders, I am not too surprised that Sam was able to cause an upset today while it was an excellent win for Cao against his higher ranked countryman who was competing in his first PTC event since PTC5.
With Ronnie out of the tournament, the opportunity fell to Mark Davis to gain the advantage in their battle for the top 16 but he was to be denied by an excellent performance from Leeds’ David Grace who came through a deciding frame. David has since followed that up with a 4-2 win against Liam Highfield and now takes on Jimmy Robertson for a place in the last 16.
Elsewhere, it has been a good day for Scotland’s Anthony McGill who has continued his improved run of late with 4-0 wins against Kacper Filipiak and Jimmy White. He now meets Liang Wenbo in the last 32 after the Chinese number two saw off Cao Yupeng earlier to get some important ranking points on the board.
On the subject of the rankings list, the ever-tightening battle for the top 48 continued as the likes of Jimmy White, Dave Harold and Liang were able to strengthen their respective positions with wins today.
At the time of writing the action continues, Ricky Walden and Mark King currently in a decider while Ken Doherty is in another battle with Peter Lines after their recent thriller at the UK Championship qualifiers. It is an important evening for Ken as with his top 32 place very much under threat from Rory McLeod every win counts for the former world champion…