Australian Goldfields Open qualifiers 2011 - Day 1

Li Yan takes victory

The qualifying rounds for the brand new Australian Goldfields Open are underway and yesterday marked the first day of the snooker battle of cues.


It can be easily said that the Chinese have made their country proud, as no more than three out of four players have qualified for the second round of this tour de force. While Cao Yupeng was strategically hammered by the mighty and very ambitious Kurt Maflin 5-1, Yu Delu succeeded to win the decider against Michael White, Tian Pengfei did the same thing in front of the powerful Indian Aditya Mehta and Li Yan found no problem in whitewashing the Polish player that has only started his run on the Main Tour, Kacper Filipiak 5-0.


On the other hand, Belgium's snooker ambassadors weren't so lucky, both Luca Brecel and Bjorn Haneever losing their first round of cue action; the youngster Luca being defeated 5-1 by another youngster, Sam Baird, while Bjorn lost 5-3 to the Pink Army member, Andrew Norman.

Robin Hull in action

The Finnish player that managed to earn himself a sport on the Main Tour by winning the first event of the recently ended Q School, is up for a wonderful start as he hammered a very dangerous opponent, Dechawat Poomjaeng 5-1 (he also hit the highest break so far, a great 136), while this season wild card James Wattana put an end to Daniel Wells' dream of going further in the competition with a 5-2 scoreline.
A very tight battle was given between the Thai Passakorn Suwannawat and the Derby's player David Gilbert, both of the players hitting a century break during the whole process (Passakorn 114, Gilbert 112). In the end the Englishman seemed to be better prepared for the victory and now, he'll face Alfie Burden in round two.


Here's the complete list of results:


10am


2.30pm


7pm


Today's schedule:


10am


2.30pm


7pm
*please note that all hours are UK time