World Championship qualifiers 2011 - Day 6

Jamie Burnett wins his first battle

Another day, new matches and...well, new surprises.
We’ve seen the Thai James Wattana keeping it cool and winning every possible match until now, but yesterday something happen. To be more precise Jamie Brunett happened. :-)) You know the guy, a player with nerves of steel who ended up being the runner-up of last year Shanghai Masters.
It was only normal to see a tight match between Jamie and James so their first session was closed at 5-4 in favor of the Thai. During the evening one Wattana tried to take advantage and win some more frames as to keep his leading role in the match, but as soon as he reached 8-5, Burnett stormed in as to take over one frame at a time and finally win the match 10-8. Remarkable comeback! We have to give it all credit for that as he also hit a beautiful 115 in the final frame :-)


Following almost the same pattern, the match between Mike Dunn and Sam Baird started by being in favor of one of them, and was ended with the other winning it, with the only difference that this time all 19 frames were consumed.
Sam was the one to take the opening frame, but Mike’s runs of 45 and 29 helped him win three frames and set the score at 3-1. The youngster Sam pulled one back, only to see his opponent winning yet another frame in his try of keeping him away from any winning frame opportunity. But no one messes with Sam an gets away with is, so being lead 2-4 he ended the first session by being 5-4 in front and also hitting a marvelous 125.

Dunn sees Baird out

The last session was on and Dunn was potting those balls like crazy, winning not one, not two, but three consecutive frames, by hitting in runs of 88 and 101. Baird cashed the next two frames as to draw at 7-7 and from that moment on the boys shared frames all the way through the end of the match. Dunn was the one who brought the battle into a decider as he hit an 87 to make the score 9-9 and after a very tiring and tense last frame he was crowned as the winner.
Unfortunately for Sam the competition ends here, but his evolutions through the World Championship qualifiers was just stunning and sooner or later he’ll get a place in the main event. You can bet on it! ;-)


Michael Holt offered us a very nice surprise for after he was lead 6-3 by his opponent James McBain, he succeeded in making a total comeback and even won the battle 10-6. Such a great start for the EPTC 6 event champion. ;-) Unfortunately I can’t say the same for his colleague, the winner of the PTC 3 event winner Tom Ford, him being beat 10-8 by Liu Chuang.
Robert Milkins saw Joe Jogia out by 10-4, while David Gilbert continued his good run and defeated Peter Lines 10-6.


Four more matches have ended their first session, the partial results being:


So today from 2:30 pm we shall find out the winners of these last four matches, but the programme continues with these brand new ones:


From 10pm (the first session) and from 7pm (the last session)
*all hours are UK time


Fingers crossed for the boys and see you tomorrow for some inside stories. ;-)