EPTC 1- Day 1

04:41:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Paul Hunter Classic/ EPTC
Ladies and gentlemen, the first European Players Tour Championship began yesterday in Fürth, Germany!!! But I would hate to start the story of this wonderful snooker event, without telling you a little something about what EPTC means. Its first year of life, was 2004, when it was called "Grand Prix Fürth" and it was a non-raking event. That year Paul Hunter beat Matthew Stevens 4-2. In the next two years, the tournament was called "Fürth German Open" and from 2007 it was named "Paul Hunter Classic" in memoriam of the "Beckham of the Baize", who left us too early due to a cruel disease. From 2010, the tournament is part of the PTC`s events and it has become a ranking event.


The qualifying round for the EPTC started a day before the actual event kicked in, on 26 August and it was a tremendous pleasure to see such an enormous crowd of snooker players working their asses to get into the EPTC and play with the masters of the game. Among the ones who competed for a place in the first round, the Dutch Roy Stolk was present. He is the runner-up from the European Championship 2010, held in Romania; and he did succeed to qualify ;)


But on with the show! How was the first day? It was pure madness! :)) All the big names from the snooker world were on fire and gave their best shot to win. Mark Selby won 4-1 over Tomasz Skalski, "The Whirlwind" beat Michael Seidel (4-0) and Dave Harold 4-2, Mark Williams whitewashed Robert Sax 4-0, the youngster Jack Lisowski beat Robbie Williams (no, not the singer :P) 4-1 and Adrian Gunnell by the same scoreline and Ronnie O`Sullivan has had a very quiet day for his opponent has withdrawn, so he won the first match effortless. Peter Ebdon was in a similar position (his opponent being Jake Nicholson) but he wasn’t lucky enough so he was defeated in the second match by his fellow-country Judd Trump (4-2). I really hope that this "pattern" will not be repeated by Ronnie! :)

Barry Pinches out from the first round

The match between Jamie Jones and Jak Jones ended 4-1 in favor of Jamie, who continued with the same scoreline, beating David Grace; Dominic Dale had a very good start, for he won over Sari Sonel 4-0, Andrew Pagett "stole" the last frame from Paul Davis 4-3, Mike Dunn made his debut by defeating Sam Harvey 4-0 and Alfie Burden totally kicked ass for he beat Patrick Fuchs 4-0 and Michael Wasley 4-2.


Among the less lucky players, the Brazilian Igor Figueiredo was present; although he had a wonderful start, beating Dezin Anar 4-0, he lost to Daniel Wells 4-3. In a much worst situation the fresh winner of the PTC 4 event, Barry Pinches lost his first match against Robert Milkins 4-3, as well as the Chinese Liang Wenbo who was defeated 4-0 by Rod Lawler. "The flying Dutchman" Roy Stolk, the guy I was telling you about at the beginning of this article lost to Liam Highfield by the same 4-3 scoreline. I’ve seen Roy play snooker and I must admit he’s doing quite a good job, so even if he didn’t win yesterday I’m sure his talent and passion for snooker will pay off and in the near future he’ll be known to the snooker world. The Belgium prodigy Luca Brecel, lost 4-2 to Mike Dunn.


A day with beautiful breaks and a lucky day for Mark Davis who’s just reached his 100th career century by hitting an 117 yesterday. Michael White made a spectacular 101 and 136, Dave Harold 105, Patrick Einsle 100, the Belgium Bjorn Haneveer 113, Jamie Jones 104, Ricky Walden 108, Kyren Wilson 111, Jimmy White 104, Michael Wasley 134, Alan McManus 107,Gerard Greene 100 and 120.
To check the scores, click here.


Today we have big names like: Steve Davis, Neil Robertson, Ali Carter, Ronnie O`Sullivan, Shaun Murphy, Mark King and many more players who will definitely enrich our snooker soul :)) See you tomorrow for the gossip! :P :))

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