Players Tour Championship Event 5 (2011) - Day 3

Lisowski, finally in the Last 16

Great day for cue battles and twisted situations in Sheffield as the first day of the main PTC 5 event kicked off. Eight players hungry for winning occupied the first places that the Last 16 round has put up for grabs, for some of them being quite a premiere to go so far in the competition.

Believe it or not it was the case of young Jack Lisowski, who although took part in all the PTC's didn't succeed to book a Last 16 place. But his luck was going to change as he recorded three consecutive victories over Andy Hicks 4-2, Andrew Norman 4-3 and Peter Lines 4-3. I'm guessing that his fans are giving a party as you read these lines.

The Sheriff's got his eye on the prize

Another stranger to the Last 16 round is the mighty "Sheriff of Pottingham", Anthony Hamilton who successfully defeated all his opponents to catch the fast train to PTC 5's next round. The first stop was conquered with a tight 4-3 scoreline over Stephen Hendry, the second one with a perfect 4-0 over Simon Bedford and the last one with a 4-2 over Shaun Murphy. 

Hendry, out of the TOP 16

Sadly, I must also mention that after losing that match, the Master Stephen Hendry is out of the Top 16, this happening for the first time in many, many years ... over twenty as far as I know. These will be hard times for the seven-time world champion who will see himself put in the position of qualifying for the events he wants to play in, after the seedings revision from October this year.

With a recently opened Twitter account, things are starting to look up for the English player, Ian McCulloch. Just kidding! He played beautifully yesterday and that got him a place next to the other two players I mentioned before. His journey started by beating Scotland's Marcus Campbell 4-1, continued with the same scoreline in front of Nigel Bong and ended with a 4-2 over Tom Ford. Great job you new Twiterer ... or whatever one should call a person who tweets. :-P

McCulloch's happy with his start

It was a really fructuous day for the Q School Event Three graduate, David Gilbert who not only qualify to go further in the competition, but he also hit the highest break of the event (so far), a brilliant 141. That actually marked the beginning of his day for he recorded that break during the match he played against Mike Hallett, whom he beat 4-1. Soon after that he managed to kneel down Ding Junhui 4-3 and put an end to Ian Burns' PTC dream with a 4-1.

David Gilbert

The PTC 1 finalist Joe Perry put quite a show by crashing Kishan Hirani and Peter Ebdon 4-0, only to end his day with a close 4-3 against Ricky Walden, while Scotland's "ice figure" (no, not Hendry!), Jamie Burnett hammered Martin O’Donnell 4-1, whitewashed Antony Parsons 4-0 and was made responsible for the exit or Robbie Williams, whom he beat 4-2. Can I just add that the music industry is really angry with that particular last match? :-))

Dave Harold,  or "the snooker strategist" as I like to call him, had another of his spectacular runs by beating Chris Norbury and Stephen Lee 4-3 (against Lee he came back from being lead 3-0), only to end his night covered in glory after defeating Graeme Dott 4-0. Now, that's something!
Andrew Higginson has also booked himself a place into the next round by crashing Joe Meara and Xiao Guodong 4-0 and hammering the PTC 3 winner, Ben Woollaston 4-1.

Below you can check Day 3 list of results: