Day three of the Welsh Open has seen the matches go largely to form, though there was one upset involving world number 18 Jamie Cope…
For the third time this season Jamie Cope is through to the last 16 of a ranking event following a terrific victory over recent UK Champion Ding Junhui this afternoon in the Welsh Open. A close match until 3-3 in which both made high century breaks, something had to give and it was the man from Stoke who was able to push on and take the final two frames to advance to a clash with Ronnie O’Sullivan. Having performed so well at the World Championship in 2009 Jamie has not really pushed on this season and again faces a battle to break through into the top 16 for the first time. Now up to 17th in the latest provisional rankings however he has arguably his best chance yet and if he can continue to win his qualifying matches until the end of the season will hopefully make it.
As indicated previously however, the other results from the afternoon session were I think fairly predictable with Mark Williams, John Higgins, Mark Selby and Graeme Dott advancing. Joe Perry of course was one of the seeded players in this tournament but has endured a tough 12 months now and against an improving former world champion was always going to find the match a struggle. Incidentally it also sees Joe drop to 20th place in the provisional rankings, almost 3,000 points from top 16 safety…
The evening matches meanwhile are very difficult to call. On the main table are Stephen Hendry and Ryan Day, two very evenly matched players at the moment. Stephen actually leads Ryan 4-0 in their previous matches and did look to be back to his best last night, but does struggle for match to match consistency these days.
On the other table Grand Prix champion Neil Robertson comes up against defending Welsh Open winner Ali Carter. I would expect Neil to come out on top as he did in their last 16 clash at the Crucible last year, but Ali looked solid against Mark Davis and will be tough to beat…