World Championship qualifiers 2011 - the last day

Ryan Day and Matthew Stevens through to the World Championship

After ten days of snooker at full speed, after some genuine battles o cues, after pressure and tension made their way with the players always on duty, the time has come to know all 16 names of those who will be "snookering" during this year’s World Championship. It’s been hard, it’s been easy, it’s been heaven on Earth, it’s been a real challenge, but for those who succeeded the real confrontation is yet to start. Three weeks of televised snooker, of playing side by side with the greatest names in the history of snooker, that’s something not easy to cope with, but these guys have done it before in many occasions so I’m sure they deal with it the in best possible way.
But before we get ahead of ourselves and think about the most important event of the year, let’s take a glance at what happened Sunday, in the last day of the World Championship qualifiers.


We are going to have the mighty team of Welshmen at the Crucible this year, because both Ryan Day and Matthew Stevens defeated their opponents. Ryan in a "lighter" way than Matthew, because he won 10-7 over the Chinese Liu Chuang, while Matthew had to play all 19 frames with Fergal O’Brien in order to win the battle. It was Stevens the one who took the lead after the first session ended and as the second one started the boys shared frames all the way through the 15th one, when O’Brien stormed in as to hit in runs of 85 and 82 and take over three frames, while setting the score at 9-8 in his favor. He was now in the position of winning this battle, but Stevens has one more Ace to play; a beautiful an tactical 129 brought him back in the match and gave him enough confidence as to win the decider as well.

Stephen Lee ends "The Nugget`s" run

Judd Trump ended David Gilbert’s beautiful run after defeating him 10-4, while the Scot Marcus Campbell eliminated Matthew Selt with a 10-6 scoreline.


Unfortunately we won’t be able to admire "The Nugget" perform at the World Championship this year, as Stephen "The Bulldog" Lee brought him down ending the first session on a 8-1 lead and the second one on 10-2. It’s going to be hard not to see Steve Davis play, more since last year he did such a tremendous job playing against John Higgins, who was back then the current world champion, and defeating him in such a beautiful and breathtaking battle of cues. However we shall still be able to hear him commentating and always stunning us with his odd news about snooker. :-))
Ken Doherty will be another figure that we shall only hear commentating, as the Irishman was defeated 10-6 by Jimmy Robertson, a young player but a very ambitious one.


Barry Hawkins succeeded in sending home Anthony Hamilton 10-5, after the first session was settled at 5-4, Alan McManus saw himself being hammered 10-2 by Stuart Bingham, while Andrew Pagett put all his energy into the final match he had with Andrew Higginson, so although he was being lead 5-4 after the first part of it, he ended the battle with a 10-6 scoreline. Such a great result for Pagett, who seemed to be reborn:-P
The day was going to be a long one as Gerard Greene and Dave Harold kept us awake due to their "decision" all bringing the match into a decider. It was a very long battle; a battle that meant the boys shared frames almost until the end of it. It was during frame 12, when Dave took the lead as to win three frames and set the score at 9-7 in his favor, but Gerard fought back and draw. The last frame saw Harold as the winner, the strategist being now one of the 16 players who earn their place into the main event.


And since we are on this subject, let’s see their names one more time, shall we?




These are the winners of this year’s World Championship qualifiers, the ones who will play against the Top1 6 players in the most important snooker tournament of them all.
My sincere congratulations go to every snooker player that took his chances as to come and play during these last past days, thanks to Matt from ProSnookerBlog for all the lovely updates (directly from Sheffield) and to you, my beloved readers for taking the time as to read my articles. :-)