German Masters 2011 - Day 2 (part I)

20:49:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Ding continues in playing his winner-card
Although the weather in Berlin is not a very enjoyable one, as rain is doing its business quite good today, the atmosphere in the Tempodram was hot, hot, hot! The day has started well enough as to offer some of the players the chance to book themselves a place into the next round with some really decisive scores, I might add. :-)


The first match of the day was the one between Ding Junhui and the Welsh Matthew Stevens and if you thought this will be a tight battle, you couldn’t have been more wrong, as Ding hammered Matt with a 5-1 scoreline. He rushed in as to take over the first three frames, then it seemed like Matt was going to make a comeback, but he only succeeded in winning one frame, the next three being cashed by Ding. Unfortunately this was it for the Welshman, for Ding has started the New Year (today the Chinese are celebrating their New Year) in the best possible way - performing like a king! :-)


But the biggest surprise of the day was yet to come, as Stephen Hendry was taking on the youngster Judd Trump. What a match that was! I don’t think anyone was expecting the result, no offence! :-P Hendry stormed into a 2-0 lead when Judd decided to pull one back and reduce the gap. Still, Hendry was meaning serious business as he conquered two more frames almost smelling the victory. The 2010 EPTC 1 event champion prolong the suspense as he won the sixth frame, but that victory came a bit too late as the next frame was taking over by the Scot. Final score: 5-2. A very, very welcomed victory for the seven-time champion, who now has a bit more confidence in his pocket.


Hendry has cashed his first victory
Daniel Wells, a wildcard player succeeded in defeating the Chinese Liu Song 5-2 and Robert Milkins proved he’s not giving up on winning after the Sunday defeat at the Shoot-Out event, as he hammered Lasse Munstermann 5-1. But no one has been as fortunate as Anthony McGill, his Dutch opponent Mario Wehrmann not showing up ... well maybe there is one guy that’s as fortunate as Anthony .... you know? Dominic Dale? He also got a bye for the next round due to O`Sullivan`s withdrawal.


The second session of the day started with the match between Mark Selby and the fresh champion Nigel Bond. The match was opened by "The Jester from Leicester" who hit in breaks of 46 and 22 as to take over the first frame and a 31 and a 70 break to take over the second. Nigel has had plenty of opportunities to stop Selby’s run, but he failed, having serious problems with the black ball (the little and stubborn ball that didn’t quite like Nigel’s touch :-P). However, Nigel won the third frame, a very scrappy one that helped him reduce the gap at 2-1. From that moment on, the match was "frozen" on small breaks and lots of mistakes, but in the end Mark succeeded in closing with a 5-1 lead.

A true player, takes care of his cue ;-)
I do have to mention the remarkable performance of Joe Swail who defeated fellow-country Mark Allen in a very tight match. They shared frames until the score ended up on 3-3, moment in which Swail rushed in as to take over the next two frames and win with a 5-3 advantage. Top class!
One of Scotland’s golden boys, Graeme Dott ended Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon`s run with a 5-1 scoreline and Peter Ebdon closed a very tiring and loooooong battle with Andrew Higginson on a 5-3 result.

Great news as it seems like Neil Robertson solved his passport problems and will play in tonight’s match against Anthony Hamilton
So don`t miss on snooker as from 19:00 (UK time) one of the greatest sports of all times return on British EuroSport. ;-) 

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