Shanghai Masters - Day 2

04:37:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Tight matches` day
What a day! What a day it was yesterday! :) Seven matches filled with tension, tricky-twisted situations, pressure and a lot of humidity problems. Yes, you read that last word well! Martin Gould was complaining about the "warm and sticky conditions" in the first day of the tournament and yesterday Mark Williams seemed to really have a problem with that, for he was visually bothered by it.


The second day of the Shanghai Masters tournament started with the match between the Chinese Liang Wenbo and Matthew Stevens. Quite a match, for Matthew was leading 4-0 and he could almost feel the smell of victory, when all of the sudden Liang fought back and won three consecutive frames; still it wasn’t enough to stop Stevens` road to victory, for he won the last frame, establishing the score to 5-3.
In similar conditions, the match between Stephen Maguire and the fresh winner of the Paul Hunter Classic tournament (aka. EPTC1) Judd Trump, started with Maguire taking the lead 4-1. Trump won the next two frames, but Maguire won the decisive one, ending the match 5-3, in his favor.

The Scot Dott to fight the Welsh Williams
Perhaps one of the most expected matches of the day, was the one which included the 2006 world champion, Graeme Dott and the 1997 world champion, Ken Doherty in its schedule. A very interesting match, for Graeme was the first to detach with 2-0, but by the seventh frame Ken was taking the lead with 4-3. Still, Ken’s luck of winning the majority of the decisive frames, lost its touch, for in the end he lost 5-4 to Graeme, who will compete next with the Welsh Mark Williams.
The match Mark Allen v. Stuart Bingham was maybe one of the "lightest" matches of the day, for it was the only one which ended 5-2.Stuart won the first two frames and Mark the next two, but the only one who continued the road to victory was Bingham.


The second part of the day made its debut with the match between Mark Williams and the second winner of the Shanghai Masters, Ricky Walden. A typical match for yesterday, for Ricky was leading 3-1, when "The Welsh potting machine" made a remarkable comeback and won the match 5-3. Still it was not an easy comeback, for Mark wasn’t at his best and like a bonus he really was disturbed by the high humidity level; many times Mark had to stop and wipe his cue or his hands.
Marco Fu and Mark Davis made quite a match, for they fought two times in order to take the lead; the first "battle" was at 3-3, when Marco won (4-3) and the second one was at 4-4, when Davis signed the victory card for 5-4 in his favor.
Not a very happy (Ryan) Day

Probably one of the most dramatic matches of the day was the one between Ryan Day and Andrew Higginson. Andrew establish the score to 3-0, but Ryan fought back and made it until 3-3; from this point on, Higginson was the master of the game, for he won 5-3.
Unfortunately for Ryan this defeat doesn’t only mean that he has to go home, but also that he loses his place in the top 16. And what’s even worse is that he didn’t qualify for the next major tournament, the World Open.


Yesterday’s century breaks: Marco Fu (101), Judd Trump (102), Mark Davis (105), Stephen Maguire (135) and Stuart Bingham (142).


It was definitely a very tense day and the scorelines prove that this season is much tougher than the last one, for every player has to participate in every tournament and earn as may points as he can in order to maintain his positions in the ranking system.


But let’s see who’s playing today:


At 7:30 (UK time) on EuroSport 2 and at 8:00 (UK time) on EuroSport
Neil Robertson vs. Peter Ebdon
Ali Carter vs. Dave Harold
Mark Selby vs. Mei Xiwen
Jamie Cope vs. Steve Davis


At 12:45 (UK time) on EuroSport 2
Ding Junhui vs. Jin Long
Shaun Murphy vs. Stephen Lee
Stephen Hendry vs. Martin Gould
Mark King vs. Joe Delaney


Also today it seems like we are going to find out what’s the verdict in the case of John Higgins and his ex-manager Pat Mooney, so I’ll keep you posted. :)

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