There is a long way still to go but Neil Robertson will be pleased with his day’s work as he opened up a 6-2 lead over Ali Carter after the afternoon session. Mark Selby meanwhile trails 5-3 against Graeme Dott, though it could have been worse…
Having both come through thrilling matches late last night perhaps it was inevitable that both Mark and Ali would experience something of a letdown today as both struggled against their more refreshed opponents. Crucially however, both demonstrated their fighting qualities by taking the final frames of their respective sessions to keep themselves in contention heading into tomorrow.
Mark Selby in particular will be thrilled because as was the case against both Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan, he looked anxious during the first session as demonstrated by a pot success rate of just 75% after seven frames. His response was telling, a total clearance of 142, easily topping his previous high break of just 35 and in all honesty he will probably be every bit as happy as Graeme Dott with that scoreline overnight.
How will tomorrow pan out? Hopefully from my point of view both Ali and Mark can come back as I will be in Sheffield for each of Saturday’s sessions so would like to see the matches go close! Carter will need to start well tomorrow but with a potential four sessions to be played he will not be panicking just yet. I would not expect Mark to play any worse than tonight meanwhile, but it will be the safety duels that will hold the key to that match…