UK Championship 2011 (the qualifiers) - Day 2

A day of clashes

The second day of the qualifying rounds saw some pretty interesting clashes and some pretty intense matches. The "6-5" scoreline was realised in no more than six matches and believe me when I say that the players who were involved in them have really given their best. 

The Chinese team was the first to see its men facing each other. First it was the match between Liu Chuang and Tian Pengfei that ended with the last named one taking down the first, by a clean 6-0 result, while Cao Yupeng defeated a very musical Song Liu 6-3.

Then, the big moment came: the clash between a soldier from the Chinese team and one from the Pink Army's team. Actually there were two and both of them ended up on the same 6-5 result.
And so Adam Wicheard became Xiao Guodong's victim, while Andy Hicks and Li Yan finished their battle of cues late in the night, with the little Chinese player being the winner.

But that was not all. A twist of fate brought face to face two brave pink soldiers: Tony Drago and Andrew Norman. And since only one of them could be the winner, the Goddess Fortuna decided to be the mighty "Tornado" Drago, who used breaks of 86, 58 and 71 to freeze the scoreline at 6-3 in his favour.

"The Whirlwind" strikes again!

Other two OnQ Promotions players made it to the third round, as Jimmy Robertson beat a very courageous and eager to win Kurt Maflin  6-5 and the youngster Michael White kneeled down another player, Barry Pinches losing by 6-4.
Unfortunately not every pink soldier won, Alfie Burden being defeated 6-3 by Adam Duffy, who booked himself a snooker meeting with Rory McLeod for later today.

A very important victory was obtained by last year World Seniors champion and also a Pink Army member, Jimmy White, "The Whirlwind" taking down a very powerful and dangerous opponent, the Thai Passakorn Suwannawat 6-2, by hitting in breaks of 51 and 103.

I can't end this article without mentioning the PTC 3 Event winner, Ben Woollaston, who after a terrific battle of cues managed to win a tough decider against Sam Craigie 6-5 and to properly land in the third round of the UK Championship qualifiers.

Here is Day 2 list of results:

12pm 

7pm 

Today's match schedule:

12pm
7pm
*all hours are UK time

Matches can be seen on www.sportlemon.tv