Brazil Masters 2011 - Day 1

Selby wins his first Brazilian cue battle

The inaugural edition of the Brazilian Masters was opened in the best possible way: with a match which saw all its frames being played. Mark Selby and Stuart Bingham ended up on a decider, decider that the provisional world number one took almost effortless.
 
Peter Ebdon saw off the mighty "Bulldog" Stephen Lee by 4-1, the local start Igor Figueiredo flew all the way to the quarter-finals after beating Jamie Cope 4-2, while Scotland's Graeme Dott hammered Mark Davis 4-1.

 
Although the first two matches didn't seem to draw too many people in the audience, the last two have done the trick. Now, don't get me wrong because it wasn't a "snooker ambush". Still, it was nice to see that the fans took their time to witness the lads in action.

 

The Australian Open champion will be heading home

The match that opened the tournament was the one given between the players that won the first two ranking events of this season: Mark Selby and Stuart Bingham. And what a better way to point that out, than by taking each frame into playing?!

 
With breaks of 68, 50 and 41 the 2011Australian Goldfields Open champion put himself in front 2-0, over a not so focused Selby and also a very tired one. Still, we all know what winning a ranking event does to your confidence so the Leicester man performed a full comeback into the game by hitting two breaks of 30. But he didn't stop there. With a perfect 82 he was now just one step away from victory, 3-2.

 

Ebbo gets a place into the quarter-finals

Bingham was lucky enough to fluke the green during the very next frame and so the decider became a reality. The 7th frame started with both players missing a red just as they were preparing a nice and steady break, but it was Selby the one who made his way through the balls in order to hit in runs of 31 and 41 and beat Bingham by 4-3. We had our first quarter-finalist.

 
After a few minutes, Peter Ebdon and Stephen Lee were entering the arena in a match that was refereed by the beautiful Michael Tabb.
Although it wasn't a very high standard cue battle, the lads did their best to earn a spot into the next round, so the match began by sharing frames. Still, from 1-1, Ebbo took his leading role in serious, breaks of 45, 21 and 37 making the scoreline go 4-1 in his favour. Not his best performance by far, but he did play better than Lee. No doubt about that!

 

Stephen Lee

As the night was making its entrance (midnight in the UK, two o'clock in the morning for me), another match was to be played. And this time it was a special one, for the local star, Igor Figuereido was facing Jamie Cope and the crowd was ready for some action.

Sadly for the Englishman, he wasn't playing at his best, while Igor was clearly on for the kill. So, with no further ado, he stormed in as to go 2-0 against Cope by hitting in breaks of 56 and 41. Still, Jamie found the strength to pull one back, after a very long and close third frame.
 

Igor Figueiredo, the man who stunned Jamie Cope

The scoreline was 2-1 in favour of the Brazilian player, but that was going to be changed into 3-1 very soon. To prolong the suspense, Jamie managed to take the forth frame of the match, but it was obviously not his day, for the following one was conquered with a beautiful 114 by Figueiredo. Final scoreline: 4-2.

 
The last match of the day saw the likes of Graeme Dott and Mark Davis. Funny that both of them are PTC finalists, Graeme reaching the final of PTC 3, where he lost 4-2 to Ben Woollaston, while Davis was whitewashed by Mark Selby during PTC 4 (aka. Paul Hunter Classic) final.

Graeme Dott

Yesterday, or should I better say today somewhere around four o'clock in the morning (UK time), the Scotsman finished his first Brazilian cue battle covered in glory. With a series of 77, 50 and 73 he defeated Mark Davis 4-1.

 
Today's match schedule is as painful as the one the day before had for us, so here it is: 

*all hours are UK time


TV coverage:


Useful link to watch snooker:
www.liveworldsnooker.tv (subscription required) 
www.sportlemon.tv 
www.mypremium.tv