Welsh Open 2011 (the qualifying rounds) - Day 1

Great start for Jaky-boy

If you don’t have the element of surprise in your life, then what’s the point of going living, right? We need thing to spice up our dull moments, no? That’s also the case for snooker. What will snooker be if only one player would go on and winning tournament after tournament? Yeah, it means he’s a tremendous player, but come on...we need more, don’t we? At least that’s how a think. :-P
I started with this short introduction to point out that the first day of the Welsh Open qualifiers was quite surprising in some aspects. Why? Well, maybe because we’ve got used to see a certain player win his first match, or maybe because we have lower expectation regarding another player ... and yesterday all those preconceptions were blown away. No, don’t expect something major, but something that will put a "hm...I didn’t see that coming" look on your face.


Our beloved friend, "Double T", the Thai Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon lost 2-4 to David Morris, while his fellow-country partner, Noppon Saengkham defeated Matthew Couch 4-2, leaving one more hope to see a Thai name in the next round and who knows, maybe in the main tournament.

Simon Beford sends Wattana home

We had three whitewashes, performed by James McBain (in the match played against Justin Astley), by Jamie O’Neill (in the match played against Kyren Wilson) and by Ben Woollaston who eliminated the Chinese Liu Song from the competition.
And since we are on the "Chinese gang", please let me inform you that we had some really interesting battles yesterday, as Liu Chuang took on Anda Zhang (so here’s a totally Chinese match) and Xiao Guodoung took on the Thai Issara Kachaiwong (all Asian match). What happened? Well, Liu won 4-2 over Anda and Xiao hammered Issarra 4-1, that’s what happened! ;-)


Jak Jones had a very good start as he defeated David Gilbert 4-2, result that was also cashed by Paul Davison who sent home Dermot McGlinchey, as for James Wattana and Simon Bedford, the boys provided the only match which ended up on a decider, decider that was finally won by Simon 4-3.
Jimmy Michie and Paul Davies withdrew from the competition, so the Brazilian star Igor Figueiredo and the Norwegian viking, Kurt Maflin got a bye to the next round.


Below you can check the results:
Ben Woollaston 4 - 0 Liu Song


And here is today’s schedule:


10 am (UK time)


2 pm (UK time)


6 pm (UK time)