While July is now home to something of an ‘Asian swing’ as far as the snooker circuit is concerned, in August the circuit will return to the UK for the PTC2 event in Gloucester and today World Snooker have published the draws for both the amateur and professional stages…
- To view the draw for the amateur stages please click here.
- To view the draw for the professional stages please click here.
Highlights from the amateur stages include an opening round tie between Michael Judge and Reanne Evans, two players relegated from the main tour last season actually met during the qualifying stages of one tournament, while Sean O’Sullivan takes on Shahram Changezi who defeated players of the calibre of Zhang Anda and Sydney Wilson during the recent Q School.
Looking on to the pro rounds, many of the ties are yet to be fixed but of those that have there are some cracking ties in prospect such as that between Tian Pengfei and Ricky Walden, the latter having been whitewashed 5-0 by Matt Selt during his Australian Open qualifier. Andy Hicks meet in a battle of the On Q players while Belgian prodigy Luca Brecel hopes to cause a shock against Stoke’s Jamie Cope.
A battle of the veterans awaits between Alan McManus and James Wattana while the on-form David Gilbert hopes to continue his winning run against Twitter comedian Mike Dunn.
The tie of the round for me however is without doubt that between Graeme Dott and Kurt Maflin, the latter like Gilbert having found his best form during recent months and who will be hoping to continue his fine scoring against the 2006 world champion.
Time off work permitting I am hoping to make it down to Gloucester at some point in order to tweet score updates but am not yet sure whether this will be possible. Fingers crossed…