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Day one from the China Open qualifiers in sunny Sheffield and it has been a good one for the Chinese players with four wins from four. Click below for details on those matches as well as the other highlights from the day…
Day One Results:
Zhang Anda 5 – 2 Patrick Wallace
Liu Song 5 – 1 Noppon Saengkham
Xiao Guodong 5 – 2 Dermot McGlinchey
Kurt Maflin 5 – 2 Simon Bedford
Joe Delaney 5 – 2 Andrew Pagett
Liam Highfield 5 – 2 Jamie O’Neill
David Gilbert 5 – 4 David Morris
Liu Chuang 5 – 3 Jak Jones
Kuldesh Johal 5 – 2 Igor Figueiredo
James McBain w/o No player
Issara Kachaiwong 5 – 1 T Thirapongpaiboon
Kyren Wilson w/o No player
James Wattana 5-1 Justin Astley
Ben Woollaston 5-1 Reanne Evans
Paul S Davison 5-3 Adam Wicheard
Michael White 5-3 Michael Judge
Click here to view the drawsheet.
Heading into the evening session it has been a day of relatively one-sided matches but that between David Gilbert and David Morris was an exception which saw Gilbert eventually edge through 5-4. With only two breaks over 50 it was not a match of the highest quality but as Morris knocked in a match-high 76 to lead 3-1 at the interval it appeared as though it would be the Irishman who would give his hopes of staying on the tour a boost.
Gilbert though is the more experienced of the two and perhaps it showed as he dug in to level at 3-3 before forcing a decider with breaks of 23, 16 and 16 in frame eight. Predictably that proved to be hard fought and judging by the live scores Morris came close to stealing it, potting the yellow before adding green, brown, blue and pink to trail by five points on the black. Eventually though it was Gilbert who sunk it to deal Morris’ ranking a significant blow and book himself a tie with Ian McCulloch tomorrow.
Another tight match was that between Liu Chuang and Jak Jones, two players whose ages combined are lower than that of Jimmy White, the next player waiting in this section of the draw. It was a close match throughout as the lead changed hands three times before the score moved on to 3-3 with the match approaching its crucial stage. Perhaps unsurprisingly from there it was the more experienced player who edged away, Liu taking the last two frames to set up what is for me an intriguing, and winnable match against White. Can he pull it off? Currently lying in 65th position in the provisional rankings, it would certainly help him if he could.
Elsewhere though it has been a day of fairly predictable results, Liu Song and Xiao Guodong boosting their top 64 chances with convincing victories while countryman Zhang Anda also won, defeating Patrick Wallace 5-2 in the morning session.
Other winners were Kurt Maflin, Joe Delaney, Kuldesh Johal, Liam Highfield and surprisingly Issara Kachaiwong who saw off the threat of youngster Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon with a top break of 66.