World Championship qualifiers 2011 - Day 9

"Come on victory, come to papa McLeod!"

Yesterday marked the penultimate day of the World Championship Qualifiers and we are now in possession of the first names through to the main event due to take place at the famous Crucible Theatre, from the middle of April and reach the beginning of May. A great event is waiting for its complete list of players and I’m really so excited just to think that I’ll be covering this event on my blog. Hi hi! But first things, first...so let’s find out what happened during Day 9 of the qualifying rounds.


Rory McLeod was on fire! I mean really in fire as he closed the first session played against Mark Davis with a 6-3 lead and he won the match by a 10-5 scoreline. If you well remember he was that player who fluked frame ball into a pocket during the last seconds of the Shoot-Out event, but this match wasn’t anything about flukes. It was about working hard to achieve your goals ;-)
Liu Song, the little Chinese who had a very good run during these qualifiers, defeating names such as Michael Judge, Adrian Gunnell and Mark Joyce, saw himself being lead just by one frame at the end of the first session 4-5 with Joe Perry, but during the last one he wasn’t able to win more than two frames, the remaining ones being cashed by Perry who ended up on a 10-6 scoreline. He is once again ready to go on a three weeks "vacation" to the Crucible. :-))

Dominic Dale qualifies for the World Championship

Liang Wenbo was the second Chinese player to be eliminated as Jamie Burnett, the man with nerves of steel recovered from being lead 5-4 at the end of the first session in order to book himself a place in the main event with a final result of 10-7. To add that he hit some very cool breaks of 129, 118 and 132 in the process? Yep, something like that :-P The guy is unstoppable!
Mark King reported on Twitter: "I meant my World championship qualifier, it’s so sweet to be home with the family knowing my work was done last night." Indeed, this gifted and ambitious player succeeded in setting the first session on a 6-3 scoreline in front of Mike Dunn end ending it on 10-5. Great start for Mark King and hopefully he’ll keep that form or even improve it (because there’s always room of improving your performance) so he can delight us in April :-)


The most incredible comeback of yesterday was Dominic Dale’s one as the Vienna resident was being lead 6-3 by Michael Holt by the end of the first part of their match. But during the last one Dom was playing so fluent and soooo superbly that he didn’t let Michael win anymore frames! He cashed them all, by hitting in runs of 65, 108 and 101 and closed the match at 10-6. Such a brilliant performance! Such determination! Top class!
Martin Gould seems to be back in business as he also obtained a place in the main event by beating Robert Milkins 10-6, after he ended the first session with on 5-4 result.


Four more matches had their first session disputed (the last one will take place today from 2:30pm), the result being:


Today is the last day so by the end of it we shall know who’s going to keep us busy when this year’s World Championship will kick off. :-)


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


Best of luck to all the players and see you tomorrow for the last day’s story :-)