China Open 2011 qualifiers - Day 3

06:18:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Howdy partner!
As the penultimate day of the China Open qualifying rounds ended, the matches have became tighter and tighter. Every player left in the competition wants one of those 16 spots in the main event and they won`t stop at nothing in order to obtain it. It`s a shame that we can`t watch what`s going on when the qualifiers matches are on, mainly because yesterday we had some really interesting and entertaining battles of cues :-)


Kurt Maflin has continued his good run as he defeated Dave Harold 5-1, Rory McLeod eliminated Barry Pinches with a final 5-2 result and the one and only Whirlwind of them all succeeded in coming back from being lead 3-1 by Peter Lines and winning the match 5-3 - a real triumph for Jimmy, who`s now playing against Dominic Dale for a place in China Open`s main event.

Davis and Wattana in action
The other legend due to have his first match yesterday was Steve Davis, "The Nugget" having to face the dangerous and eager to win Thai, James Wattana. As James took the opening frame just by being three points ahead of Davis (55-52), the six-time world champion found himself being one frame behind him all the way through. The Thai was always taking the lead and Steve was always pulling one back as to equalise the situation at hand, so it wasn`t too much of a shock to see James take the 9th frame and securing a place into Round 4, by doing so. Unfortunately for Davis his run ends here and is no one more pissed off with this situation than me, for I was really looking forward in seeing him play in Beijing :-(


Matthew Selt and Alfie Burden were the ones to open the series of tight battles as the boys played all the necessary frames to end their encounter. It was Matt the one who opened the score with a break of 97, but Alfie took the next one and also took the lead 2-1, only to see his opponent winning three frames in a row as to go at just one step away from victory (4-2). But Alfie didn`t panic for he started to win his way through the balls until he leveled up the score and brought the match into a decider, that he actually won fair and square 5-4.


Selt and Burden offered us a true battles of cues
On a similar note, Robert Milkins eliminated David Gilbert 5-4 after another tight battle of cues. After Robert took the first frame, the boys started to share frames all the way though the decider who had Robert`s name written all over it. Well, maybe those runs of 19 and 52 had something to do with the victory also :-P
Nigel Bond proved once more to be in quite the good form as he won 5-4 over Belgium`s chance to China Open - Bjorn Haneveer, in a match that saw both players doing what they know best - playing snooker under tough conditions (the humidity was high ...as well as the pressure).


We had some century breaks that worth to be mention, as it follows: Anthony Hamilton (102), Matthew Couch (105), Jamie Burnett (107), David Gilbert (112) and Tony Drago (137).


The complete list of scores for the third day of the qualifiers:
Matthew Selt 4 - 5 Alfie Burden
Tom Ford 5 - 3 Liu Song
Anthony Hamilton 5 - 0 Joe Jogia
Dave Harold 1 - 5 Kurt Maflin
Mark Joyce 5 - 1 Joe Delaney
Rory McLeod 5 - 2 Barry Pinches
Robert Milkins 5 - 4 David Gilbert
Peter Lines 3 - 5 Jimmy White
Nigel Bond 5 - 4 Bjorn Haneveer
Mike Dunn 5 - 2 James McBain
Tony Drago 2 - 5 Issara Kachaiwong
Michael Holt 3 - 5 Rod Lawler
Steve Davis 4 - 5 James Wattana
Jamie Burnett 3 - 5 Ben Woollaston
Fergal O'Brien 5 - 3 Matthew Couch
Alan McManus 3 - 5 Joe Swail


Last day schedule, looks like this:


10am
49. Stephen Lee v. Alfie Burden (winner to play Mark Williams at the venue)
50. Ryan Day v. TomFord (winner to play Ronnie O'Sullivan at the venue)
51. Matthew Stevens v. Anthony Hamilton (winner to play Stephen Hendry at the venue)
52. Mark King v. Kurt Maflin (winner to play Ding Junhui at the venue)
53. Stuart Bingham v. Mark Joyce(winner to play Ali Carter at the venue)
54. Marcus Campbell v. Rory McLeod (winner to play Mark Allen at the venue)


2.30pm
55. Andrew Higginson v. Robert Milkins (winner to play Jamie Cope at the venue)
56. Dominic Dale v. Jimmy White (winner to play Mark Selby at the venue)
57. Liang Wenbo v. Nigel Bond (winner to play John Higgins at the venue)
58. Martin Gould v. Mike Dunn (winner to play Ricky Walden at the venue)
59. Ken Doherty v. Issara Kachaiwong (winner to play Graeme Dott at the venue)


7pm
60. Joe Perry v. Rod Lawler (winner to play Shaun Murphy at the venue)
61. Mark Davis v. James Wattana (winner to play Stephen Maguire at the venue)
62. Judd Trump v. Ben Woollaston (winner to play Marco Fu at the venue)
63. Gerard Greene v. Fergal O'Brien (winner to play Peter Ebdon at the venue)
64. Barry Hawkins v. Joe Swail (winner to play Neil Robertson at the venue)
 *all hours are UK time


So be sure to keep your fingers crossed for your favorite/s as this is the last chance for a trip to China ;-)

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