As reported at Bedford Today, snooker legends Steve Davis and Jimmy White played out a thoroughly entertaining match at the Times & Citizen Legends of Snooker Challenge yesterday evening. Coming back from 3-1 down White eventually managed to win the match 5-4, before defeating local player Sam Harvey with a break of 116 in the amateur challenge to complete a successful night.
Tag: Jimmy White
Where next for Ding Junhui?
Image supplied by Janie Watkins
With the Shanghai Masters coming up soon, now appears to be the perfect opportunity to consider the career of China’s best ever player Ding Junhui and to consider possible reasons for his recent struggles in ranking events.
Rise to stardom
Having started playing snooker at the age of nine, by the time he was fifteen he was already skilled enough to win the Asian Under 21 championship, Asian Championship and IBSF World under 21 Championship in 2002.
His rapid progress continued on the main tour where having turned professional in 2003, he recorded an impressive win over Joe Perry on his debut at the Wembley Masters in 2004. A year later he remarkably managed to capture his first ranking event title on home soil in China, a victory that significantly raised his profile, and that of snooker full stop in his homeland.
Soon after he managed to show that this was no fluke by winning the UK Championship and Northern Ireland Trophy – all before he reached the age of 20 which was a remarkable achievement, matched only by Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins.
At this point in time I was beginning to think that he could really be in a position to push on and possibly be one of the favourites for the Word Championship that season, maybe even challenging for a place at the very top of the rankings. He appeared to be nerveless, have all the shots required and although he did not always perform in the qualifying matches at Prestatyn, he appeared to have the temperament to handle himself on the big occasions.
Masters 2007
Returning to London for the Wembley Masters, Ding started the tournament in fine form, making his first career 147 in his opening match against Anthony Hamilton before going on to reach the final where he would face local favourite Ronnie O’Sullivan. Despite making a strong start to the match, Ding soon found himself overwhelmed by a combination of O’Sullivan’s incredible play and the boisterous, hostile home crowd. This continued to a point where Ding appeared to have all but given up and in fact tried to concede the match with O’Sullivan still one frame from victory. He continued after the mid-session interval however and his concession was attributed to him thinking that the final was a best of 17 match.
Image supplied by Janie Watkins
This was not the first time that Ding had appeared vulnerable to a partisan crowd however as just three months before during a Premier League match with Jimmy White, he appeared to again struggle to cope with the atmosphere, losing the match 5-1.
Since these defeats Ding just hasn’t looked like quite the same player to me, something borne out by the fact that he has not reached the semi-finals of a ranking event in the last 18 months. Although he remains a member of the top 16, Ding’s temperament has also increasingly looked questionable at times and his opponents have been able to take advantage of this.
What are the possible reasons for this? At 21 he is of course still very young and it cannot be easy to come up against a partisan crowd at Wembley like he did, particularly being in a foreign country halfway across the world from his homeland.
A season and a half has passed since that defeat however and it makes me wonder whether there is a deeper problem at the moment. Could it be that Ding is struggling with the pressure of leading China’s hopes at the very top of the game? The growth and interest in the sport over there is huge at the moment and particularly given his earlier successes, perhaps the levels of expectation placed upon him are causing him problems. Only Ding can answer this but if there is some truth to that theory then hopefully the emergence of Liang Wenbo this year will help to take some of the attention away from him.
The future
At just 21 years old he should still have the best years of his career ahead of him and you don’t simply lose the talent that fired him to those three titles a couple of years ago. Something needs to change however as having made a slow start to this season by losing his opening matches on the ranking circuit and the Premier League, Ding’s confidence will not be high at the moment. A good run in front of his home crowd in the upcoming Shanghai Masters might just give him the lift that he needs, though he will have to play well from the start to defeat the in-form Dave Harold. We shall see.
Roewe Shanghai Masters Wildcards
It would appear that there will be seven wildcards appearing in the main draw for the Roewe Shanghai Masters this month. Their matches will be played on Monday 29th September and according to this document, and the official tournament format, this will mean that the schedule is:
Monday 29 September
3pm
Ricky Walden v Zhang Alda
Judd Trump v A Bu La Jiang
Jimmy White v Xiao Guodong
Anthony Hamilton v Li Yan
7.45pm
Andy Hicks v Li Yuan
Tom Ford v Yu Delu
Stuart Pettman v Cao Xinlong
Also taking place on the Monday evening will the qualifying match held over from Prestatyn between Liang Wenbo and Atthasit Mahitthi. The winner will play Mark Allen for a place in the last 32 on Tuesday morning.
2008 Royal London Watches Grand Prix: Qualifying Draw
The qualifying draw for the 2008 Grand Prix has today been made available and be viewed here. As usual the matches will be held at Pontin’s, Prestatyn from the September 22-25 and the winners will then be drawn at random against the top 16 players for round 1 of the TV stages.
Jimmy’s Path
Unbeaten at Pontin’s so far this season, Jimmy White has been paired with reigning IBSF World U-21 champion and snooker ‘hotshot’ Michael Georgiou in round 1. Having lost his first two matches of the season Georgiou will be hoping for better against White, though given the Whirlwind’s current form it won’t be easy. Indeed there is nothing easy about this section of the draw with the winner facing David Gray in the next round, with Michael Holt and finally Michael Judge awaiting further down the line should they win that match. If Jimmy wants to reach the TV stages of a third straight event therefore then he will have to play at his very best once again.
Tie of the Round
At the very bottom of the draw in what is on paper the most intriguing match of the first round are the experienced Matthew Couch and promising Geordie youngster Stephen Craigie. Having both made the third round in the Shanghai qualifiers last week, both will be confident and it should be a close tussle between players with 16 years between them. If Craigie can prevail against someone with so much experience however, it will provide further evidence that he is the real deal as well as the reward of a match with the in-form Mark Davis in round 2.
Higgins v White Exhibition Footage
Last night in Telford snooker legends Jimmy White and Alex Higgins faced each other in an exhibition match as reported in the on the Shropshire Star website.
Within the article is a video news report containing footage from the evening and an interview with Jimmy. In it, he talks both about his own recent form and an upcoming tour of the south coast that he will be starting with Higgins in January 2009. The match for what it is worth ended 2-2, though from the brief highlights on the video it is clear that the evening was all about the entertainment as you would expect from these two.
Roewe Shanghai Masters Qualifying Quotes Round-up
Here are a selection of quotes from the players following the final qualifying matches for Shanghai yesterday as reported on SkySports.
Jimmy White:
“I played very well, I had to if I wanted to beat Ken,”
“I was very solid today and it’s great to have qualified for the first two events.
“I’ve got used to the conditions at Pontin’s now, which is important as the guys who play here all the time have an edge.
“I’m looking forward to China because snooker is very popular there, although to be honest I’m enjoying the game so much at the moment it doesn’t matter where I play.”
Ken Doherty:
“It’s a bad result, it was a baptism of fire for me,”
“Jimmy got off to a flyer and I was always playing catch-up. It’s hard coming here, you have to get your hands dirty and get on with it, but fair play to Jimmy because he deserved to win.”
Steve Davis:
“Any win is a good win,”
“I wasn’t expecting too much and Gerard was probably favourite having played a match here yesterday. But he didn’t play great today.
“It’s funny to be here and see people like Jimmy, Ken, Mark Williams and Matthew Stevens. I looked at the monitor where all the matches are listed and thought ‘wow, there’s some fantastic games on today’.”
Anthony Hamilton:
“I played solid, but a 5-1 scoreline was a hit flattering,”
“It could have easily been 2-2 at the interval, but I stuck in there and didn’t give him many chances. It really wasn’t as comfortable as 5-1 suggests, but you’ve got to win those scrappy frames. Once I’d won them I started to play a lot better.”
And Dave Harold told The Sentinel:
“It was a little bit of a shock to the system going back to Pontin’s, especially having reached the final in Belfast,”
“In Belfast I played in front of a big crowd, but there was no one in the crowd here.
“But I’m so used to playing here that I knew what I had to do. I played solidly, it was another good win for me.”
“I was feeling the pressure. Everyone expects you to win because of what I achieved in Belfast,” added Harold.
“But I played well from the word go. I twitched a little bit to get over the winning line, but there were no scares.”
“It’s tremendous to have qualified for Shanghai for the second season in a row. I’m looking forward to playing Ding.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season. To qualify for the first two ranking events has been great – and of course getting to the final in Belfast.”
Roewe Shanghai Masters Qualifying – Day Four (updated)
Today marked the final day of the Shanghai Masters Qualifiers and other than the match involving Liang Wenbo and Atthasit Mahitthi which has been held over until the venue, all of the matches have now been completed. Click here for the full draw.
Afternoon Matches
Day to remember for legends
With 14 world championship finals and six world titles between them both Steve Davis and Jimmy White are undoubtedly snooker legends, but success in recent years has been somewhat harder to achieve. Today however, both showed that they still have the talent and they still have to hunger for the game by winning their final qualifying matches this week and qualifying for the TV stages of the Roewe Shanghai Masters later this month.
First to win was Jimmy White who recorded a stunning 5-1 win over 1997 world champion Ken Doherty. Again as in many of his matches this season White’s performance wasn’t one full of high breaks, but his determination and ability to fight this week was enough to beat an opponent playing his first ever match at Prestatyn. With the venue being as small and as intimate as it is, Ken can be forgiven for being a bit lost away from the TV venues that he has become accustomed to, but he will nevertheless be disappointed with this latest setback. Hopefully he will be back though, Ken is one of the nicest guys on the tour and is still classy enough to fight with the best.
White was then joined in the TV stages by six times world champion Steve Davis who recorded a very impressive 5-3 win over the dangerous Gerard Greene. Greene on the back of a good win yesterday against Steve’s namesake Mark was always going to be a tough but to crack but breaks of 64, 50 and 54 were enough to see him home. Davis will meet defending champion Dominic Dale in Shanghai in what is bound to be another close match.
Fellow veterans follow suit
Northern Ireland Trophy finalist Dave Harold kept up his brilliant form today with an excellent 5-1 win over Rod Lawer. The most impressive aspect of Dave’s performance today was his scoring which with breaks of 62, 84, 44, 83 and 41 ensured that Lawler was always on the back foot.
Similarly impressive was Ireland’s Fergal O’Brien who won 5-3 in what was a high quality encounter with Ian Preece, highlighted by a break of 137 in the penultimate frame. Preece who yesterday recorded the highest break of the week and of his career fought well to level the match at 3-3 but Fergal moved up a gear when he had to and sealed the win.
Also progressing were Anthony Hamilton who won 5-1 against livewire Michael Holt and interestingly the 1995 World semi-finalist Andy Hicks who won his third match of the week in beating Michael Judge 5-2. In a match where nearly every frame seemed to go the distance, Hicks managed to follow White’s example and keep his nerve in these situations
Youth hits back
The veterans didn’t have it all their own way today however as Joe Swail slipped to a 5-3 defeat against teenager Judd Trump. In a performance highlighted by a tremendous break of 135 Trump showed some of the promise that has put him up to a career high position of 41 in the rankings to earn a match with Mark Selby in the last 32
Evening Matches
Welsh Wins
Two of the most comfortable wins tonight belonged to Welsh pair Matthew Stevens and twice world champion Mark Williams who both recorded 5-1 wins tonight. Stevens overcame Alan McManus, gaining some measure of revenge following defeat to the Scot in last week’s Northern Ireland trophy. Williams meanwhile beat Mark Joyce by the same scoreline as his quest to regain a place in the top 16 goes on.
Big Breaks
The match of the day however was that between Stephen Lee and Leicester’s Tom Ford. Ford started brilliantly with a run of 106 which set him on the way to a 4-1 lead and seemingly a comfortable win. Lee showed his class however and fought back well taking the next three frames. With the scores level though, Ford finished off the match as he started it with his second century of the match to seal an excellent win.
Similarly Stuart Pettman secured a place in Shanghai by winning the last two frames in his match against Nigel Bond to win 5-4. The match got off to a flying start with first Bond making a break of 119 before Pettman went one better with a 120 and then 114 to move into the lead. Bond then fought back to go 4-3 ahead following a lengthy seventh frame but it was Pettman who was to prevail and earn a shot at world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan in Shanghai.
Five star performances
Less close however were the matches involving Jamie Cope and Stuart Bingham. Cope, looking to break into the top 16 for the first time this season managed to see off Welshman Jamie Burnett without losing a frame whilst Bingham did likewise against 36 year old Mike Dunn.
Today’s results in full:
Round Four
Steve Davis 5-3 Gerard Greene 19-65(50), 80(64)-34, 74(50)-0, 68-18, 65(54)-25, 40(30)-70(40), 60-68, 57-34
Dave Harold 5-1 Rod Lawler 92(62)-0, 84(84)-0, 71(44)-38, 83(83)-4, 36-61, 53(41)-6
Fergal O’Brien 5-3 Ian Preece 80(50)-53(39), 57(57)-66(48), 66(39)-12, 74(50)-0, 37-74, 0-90(82), 137(137)-0, 63(36)-18
Ian McCulloch 2-5 Ricky Walden 66-44, 70(40)-13, 8-46, 46-63, 50-73(42), 0-69(40), 14-73(35,38)
Joe Swail 3-5 Judd Trump 0-135(135), 69-22, 38-54, 42-64, 77(66)-16, 73-63, 0-92(92), 52-65(38)
Ken Doherty 1-5 Jimmy White 37-92(44), 28-73, 0-82(82), 24-80(42), 88(50, 38)-0, 8-70(37)
Anthony Hamilton 5-1 Michael Holt 62(32)-39, 66(52)-54, 76(76)-32(32), 61(43)-14, 48(44)-83(72), 71(67)-28
Michael Judge 2-5 Andy Hicks 66-67(38), 67(40)-54(54), 79-6, 25-69(39), 0-71(59), 23-86(82), 43-73(64)
Barry Hawkins 5-2 David Morris 73(56)-12, 66-54(54), 6-85(70), 67(47)-21, 49(44)-70(38), 87(49)-4, 103(103)-0
Stuart Bingham 5-0 Mike Dunn 70-34, 71(38)-36, 94(68)-52, 74(74)-10, 70-42
Stephen Lee 4-5 Tom Ford 0-106(106), 9-71(71), 87-25, 14-81(45,35), 13-69(56), 64(36)-14, 71(56)-64, 65(40)-1, 0-138(100)
Mark Williams 5-1 Mark Joyce 97(38,37)-4, 53(41)-54(37), 101(77)-4, 68(67)-43, 76(38)-28, 63(39)-60(35)
Matthew Stevens 5-1 Alan McManus 67-37, 70(46)-43, 81(80)-0, 74(73)-28, 1-83(69), 69(36)-28
Jamie Cope 5-0 Jamie Burnett 69-48, 71(42)-45, 67(33)-55(55), 81(48)-1, 62(45)-17
Nigel Bond 4-5 Stuart Pettman 119(119)-18, 0-120(120), 1-115(114), 74-49, 70-1, 0-88(88), 66-13, 47-72, 13-72
Roewe Shanghai Masters Qualifying – Day Three
Click here for the draw.
White sets up Doherty clash
Crowd favourite Jimmy White maintained his 100% Prestatyn record this season by beating former Welsh Open finalist Andrew Higginson 5-3 on Thursday afternoon. Although White failed to hit top form in terms of his scoring, he showed his experience to come through several close frames to reach the fourth round, finishing the match appropriately by winning the eighth frame by just five points. He now faces the 1997 World Champion Ken Doherty in what is an intriguing match-up for the right to play in Shanghai later this month. Doherty, the likeable Irishman, will be looking to build on a solid start to the season himself however and put a run together that will help him to regain a top 16 position for next season.
High break
Scoring well however was Welshman Ian Preece who not only progressed to the next round with a 5-2 win over Marcus Campbell, but also recorded his highest break in professional competition. His previous best was a 134 break that he made in qualifying for the 2004 World Championship but in frame six today he bettered that by five points with a sublime 139 to put him 4-2 ahead at the time. Next up for him is a tricky clash with Irishman Fergal O’Brien tomorrow.
Round 1 runs come to an end
All but one of the players still in the draw who played in Monday’s first round matches bowed out today with defeats for Lee Spick, Andy Lee, Robert Stephen, Stephen Craigie, Matt Selt and Matt Couch. Indeed the sole remaining player Atthasit Mahitthi is yet to progress to round four as his match with Liang Wenbo has been held over until the venue.
Selt and Craigie’s impressive runs in the tournament were ended by experienced pros Jamie Burnett and Mike Dunn respectively. Burnett in particular played well, recording a break of 114 and not dropping a frame in a 5-0 win while Dunn secured a 5-2 victory. Both Selt and Craigie however will take a useful 900 points from the event along with some match experience that can only be useful for the rest of the season.
Couch meanwhile went down 5-2 to Alan McManus who maintained his impressive recent form and set up a rematch with Matthew Stevens who he beat 5-2 in Northern Ireland just last week.
High standard
Arguably the match with the highest standard today however was Gerard Greene’s 5-3 victory over Mark Davis, a match containing one century and five over breaks over 50. Given Davis’ good form in his last couple of ranking events going back to last season when he qualified for the World Championship, this was a very good result for Greene who lost to Doherty in Northern Ireland. Next up is snooker legend Steve Davis and Greene will be hoping for better luck than in their meeting in the first round of the 2005 World Championship where Davis prevailed 10-9.
Today’s results in full:
Round Three
* held over to Shanghai
Gerard Greene 5-3 Mark Davis 22-68, 108(108)-8, 75(44)-21, 23-77(53), 59(53)-44(36), 83(83)-6, 7-86(57), 70(57)-0
Jimmy Michie 4-5 Rod Lawler 44-72(34), 10-73(48), 43(38)-74(32), 76(38)-50, 68(36)-1, 63(41)-34, 35-76, 64(59)-57, 29-60(51)
Marcus Campbell 2-5 Ian Preece 64(31)-50(36), 33-60(49), 62(44)-44(36), 1-84(54), 0-139(139), 35-78
Ricky Walden 5-3 Lee Spick 39(39)-76(45), 69(69)-7, 99(99)-0, 2-84(80), 10-108(48, 60), 63(42)-45, 81(38)-41, 110(101)-6
Judd Trump 5-2 Andy Lee 71(52)-18, 58(58)-61(46), 70(38)-63, 79(68)-7, 89(70)-47(47), 35-57(33), 66-33
Andrew Higginson 3-5 Jimmy White 55-65, 54(36)-63, 38-74(43), 62(40)-53(40), 6-74(74), 74(74)-1, 80(68)-17, 54-59
Michael Holt 5-1 Robert Stephen 104(74)-6, 64-50, 68(49)-18, 0-68(51), 77(36)-50, 66(61)-9
Dave Gilbert 2-5 Andy Hicks 9-60, 21-68(44), 42-45, 70-0, 27-57(54), 71(71)-29, 42-58(34)
Tom Ford 5-2 Andrew Norman 129(125)-0, 0-106(91), 93(62)-16, 27-71(70), 72(55)-46, 80(45)-6, 79(35)-47(39)
Mike Dunn 5-2 Stephen Craigie 117(39,69)-0, 97(91)-8, 0-79(31,48), 64-52, 0-67(46), 71(47)-30, 77(71)-24
*Liang Wenbo 0-0 Atthasit Mahitthi
Rory McLeod 3-5 Stuart Pettman 106(45,57)-0, 41-53(39), 50-66(36), 66-52, 62-61, 22-72(72), 11-67(48), 50-78(47)
David Gray 3-5 David Morris 20-65(43), 65(43)-21, 66(51)-42(37), 9-62(35), 7-82(73), 73-50, 26-82(82), 20-56(34)
Jamie Burnett 5-0 Matt Selt 64-54, 80(54)-42(36), 60(38)-15, 115(114)-0, 57-47
Alan McManus 5-2 Matt Couch 86-51, 28-52, 68(60)-35, 70(69)-8, 31-86(54), 72(51)-36, 72(46)-16
Adrian Gunnell 3-5 Mark Joyce 45-67, 67(48)-4, 11-65, 41-73(39), 76(46)-0, 72(40)-34, 50(40)-74(45), 8-90(77)