After yesterday’s two preliminary round matches, today has seen the action really get underway in Sheffield with the qualifiers for the 2012 German Masters. Headline stories include important victories for both Steve Davis and Jimmy White while Rob Milkins delivered a whitewash against Tian Pengfei to advance…
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Having recently booked his place at the UK Championship in York with victories against David Gilbert and Peter Ebdon, Gloucester’s Robert Milkins today recorded an impressive 5-0 victory against China’s Tian Pengfei to get his German Masters campaign underway in perfect fashion.
Next up for the man nicknamed the Milkman will be a clash with six-time world champion Steve Davis, another man who is in a good run of form at present having also qualified for the final stages of the UK Championship. Today he came through a tie with Northern Ireland’s Joe Meara 5-3 as he bids to retain his spot inside the top 48. Stay tuned for my interview with Steve recorded in Gloucester recently as he discusses his improved form of late.
There was also victory today for Jimmy White as the Whirlwind recovered from dropping two of the first three frames to see off Matt Couch 5-3 with a top break of 120 along the way. In the next round he will face Stuart Carrington after the Grimsby professional surprisingly edged out Joe Jogia in a deciding frame. Having struggled for victories to date during his maiden tour season, this represents arguably his most impressive result to date and it will be interesting now to see how he gets on against White.
Another tour debutant to record an impressive win today was Sam Craigie as the youngster dispatched Jack Lisowski for the loss of just one frame, hitting breaks of 103, 86 and 84 in the process. Having watched Sam up close during his two deciding frame matches at the UK qualifiers recently I was struck by the maturity of play for someone just 17 years of age. It is normally the way that young players learn to attack first and play safety later in terms of their development but with Sam he is not afraid to take his time around the table and refuse shots if he feels that is the right thing to do.
In some ways he reminds me of Sam Baird who himself was in action today in a 5-1 defeat to Adrian Gunnell. It has been tough year or so for Adrian on the whole but with his tour status on the line he has impressed in the season’s major events so far having now won at least one match during all four of this season’s full ranking tournaments to date. Next up for him will be a match with Jimmy Robertson, the man who actually defeated Adrian 4-1 at the recent PTC9 event in Antwerp and today received a walkover against the recently retired Bjorn Haneveer.
Also through today was David Grace who recorded an impressive 5-4 victory against Mark Joyce, while Ben Woollaston continued his consistent form with a 5-1 success against Liverpool’s Rod Lawler.
The final match to finish of the afternoon session was that between Yu Delu and Barry Pinches, the man from China eventually coming through a 5-4 winner after some five hours.
At the time of writing there are a further five matches underway and you can follow the latest scores at World Snooker by clicking the link at the top of the page.