Through to the last 32 of the UK Championship are Stuart Bingham and Mike Dunn who have both recorded comfortable victories this evening. Click below to see who will be joining them…
Click here to see how the last 32 draw is shaping up.
Having both come out of the morning session with a 6-2 advantage, both Basildon’s Stuart Bingham and Redcar’s Mike Dunn wasted little time in sealing comfortable progress through to the last 32 stage in Telford. For Stuart his opponent was Jimmy Michie, a man who despite a good win against Ben Woollaston on Friday has struggled for form over the last year or so. Bingham meanwhile has been in good shape, taking the Paul Hunter English Open title back in July and reaching the venue stages of both the Shanghai Masters and the Grand Prix already. As was to be expected therefore, he duly wrapped up the three frames he needed this evening to win 9-2 and book a tie with Joe Perry next month.
Mike Dunn meanwhile was taking on Joe Swail who of course managed to kickstart his season last year at the very same event with a dramatic win over Liang Wenbo. It was not to be this time however as like Bingham, Dunn soon won the three frames he needed for victory tonight to earn him a clash with 2005 champion Ding Junhui in Telford.
Soon to join them was world number 32 Gerard Greene who ended the run of Thepchaiya un-Nooh with a 9-5 victory. Level at 4-4 on the resumption of play at 4pm, it looked like we were heading for a close finish but the experience of Greene perhaps proved telling and he dropped just one more frame en route to victory. Nevertheless it has been a good week for Thepchaiya who was able to make the last 48 for the first time and has given his hopes of remaining on the tour for a second season a significant boost. Next up for Gerard though is a match with defending champion and top seed Shaun Murphy…
Another player to see his maiden last 48 match end in defeat was Craig Steadman who lost out by the same scoreline to former UK semi-finalist Graeme Dott. Early on it was again a close match, Craig leading 4-3 before Graeme took the last of the morning session to mean that they went into tonight level at 4-4.
Though Graeme moved into a 7-5 lead, Craig was still fighting and with a 59-0 lead in the next frame looked set to reduce his arrears to just a single frame. Crucially though Graeme managed to get back to the table to steal the frame and that proved to be effectively the match as he finished it off in frame 14. A disappointing defeat for Craig but like Thepchaiya, an encouraging run to this stage of the tournament and one that will help his position in the rankings considerably. For Graeme though he will now face Mark Williams in Telford, a repeat of their last 16 clash last year at the same tournament which was won by the Welshman.
One man who can do little wrong at the moment is Peter Lines and he has kept his good run going by recording an excellent 9-6 win against former world finalist Nigel Bond to qualify for the venue stage. The match was level at 4-4 following the morning session and some might have expected Nigel’s experience to bring him through, but Peter is in excellent form right now and managed to pull away to seal victory.
Not only has he won eleven consecutive round one matches since getting onto the tour at the start of last season but now that he is reaching the last 48 and 32 of events, he could well finish the season ranked in the top 48. Next up for him in Telford will be last season’s finalist Marco Fu and it will be interesting to see how Peter handles playing in front of the cameras…
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