The Saeng Som Saraburi Cup, Thailand’s fifth ranking event of the season, began at the Provincial Hall in Saraburi on Sunday…
Saraburi, a small town best known for its granite and cement works an hour or so north of Bangkok, is also the home of former main tour pro and IBSF world champion Atthasit Mahitti, and it was he who got the event underway with his qualifying match held over to the venue. A routine 4-0 win over Sarawut Kanchananurak followed, before the wildcards entered the fray on Monday.
Neither of the two invited players made much of an impression, as David Singh was demolished 4-0 by little known Surasak Poochalaem, and then Stuart Pettman ran into former Asian under-21 champion Pramual Jantad who was clearly at the top of his game. Pettman delayed proceedings long enough only to add an early contender for the high break prize with a 121 in the third frame, but Pramual took four frames with one-visit contributions to come through 4-2.
Tuesday saw the start of the last-16 round of matches. Pisit Chansri took the opener against Phaitoon Phonbun only to see Phaitoon reel off the next four with runs of 62, 76, 60 and 67. Chuchart Trairattanapradit (Tai Pichit) saw off Somchai Kaosamran by the same 4-1 scoreline, and then Thepchaiya Un-Nooh provided his regular fireworks with breaks of 108 and 129 in his 4-2 win over Atthasit. The evening match between Supoj Saenla and Surasak Poochalaem finished with Supoj an easy victor by four frames to nil.
The remaining last-16 games took place on Wednesday, beginning with Pramual Jantad against Chinnakrit Yaowanasiri. Chinnakrit just missed out on a main tour spot when he lost an Asian under-21 final to Xiao Guodong back in 2007, but he was unable to stop Pramual’s run to the quarter finals as his opponent cruised to a 4-1 win with an 88 break the highlight. The next match saw the first major surprise of the tournament when Noppadol Saengnil took on Surathep Poochalaem – Surasak’s younger and higher-ranked brother. Surathep might be better known for the kind of frilly shirts favoured by Doug Mountjoy back in his heyday, but he is no mug on the table and wasted little time in polishing off Noppadol 4-0. Issara Kachaiwong also made the last eight, comfortably defeating Praprut Chaitanasakul (Rom Surin) 4-2.
Thursday’s quarter finals begin at 10:00.
Supoj Saenla v Phaitoon Phonbun
Chuchart Trairattanapradit v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
Surathep Poochalaem v Pramual Jantad
Issara Kachaiwong v Poramin Danjirakul / Noppadon Noppachorn