Snooker World Cup 2011 - Day 3

The republic of Ireland gets its first victory

“One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster. The bars are temples but the pearls aren’t free ..." Ok, so maybe Day 3 of this crazy Snooker World Cup is not about "a night", but about "a day", though it must be said it was a pretty long one.

It's definitely a problem to play that double frame and so many players have struggled with it, that I think a shot-clock would make a huge difference for the next year of this competition. Still, now we are playing by the rules, so let's forget the usual complaints out of this fine article and move on to what happened today, ok? ;-)


First of all it has to be said that it was a very nice surprise to see Republic of Ireland's team cash its first victory. Ken Doherty and Fergal O'Brien had to face Egypt's Wael Talat and Yasser Al-Sherbini and although it was a very, very hard fought battle, Ireland's came out as the winner, by an incredible 4-1 scoreline. This result will surely have a positive impact on the lads’ confidence, as they lost their first snooker encounter with Pakistan, 2-3.

Maguire: Hm...what do you think? Higgins: We'll win for sure!

At table number two, Northern Ireland was taking on the powerful Brazilian team, formed by Noel Rodrigues and Fabio Luerse. We all know what Mark Allen and Gerard Greene did to India, right? That 4-1 result? Well, they did the same thing to the "dancing players" from Brazil. Easy as one, two, three! :-))


It wasn't a very good day for Thailand (for either of its teams), as the first one suffered a 2-3 defeat in front of Malta's Drago and Borg, and the second one was hammered 4-1 by Hong Kong. By the way, this is Hong Kong's second victory since the beginning of this competition, out of three played matches.
Another hammering was in process of being realised, as Scotland put its fine players to work and defeated Afghanistan’s team by 4-1, breaks of 72 (Higgins), 74 (Maguire) and 55 being part of the offer :-))

Williams and Stevens holding hands :-)))) Such a lovely couple

The second part of the day saw China win 3-2 over UAE, after one of the longest matches of this tournament, while at the near table, England was beating Belgium by the same scoreline but in a more rapidly way.
I must add that Mark Selby was on fire, him being the player whose breaks of 68 and 102 made the difference in the winning of this cue battle. Unfortunately Ali Carter lost both of its encounters with Haneveer and Brecel.


Another important victory was about to be marked in the calendar for the team of Wales, Mark Williams and Matthew Stevens succeeding to defeat Germany's best players: Patrick Eisle and Lasse Munstermann. It wasn’t the most spectacular match of the day and the scoreline could have easily be a clearer one in favour of Wales, but in the end a victory is a victory and since the players get points per frame won ... well, that should do the trick.


Before I'll let you see the schedule for Day 4, let' take a look at how the teams have done their job until this moment, shall we?


Egypt 4 points
Pakistan 5 points
Germany 7 points
Ireland 6 points


China 6 points
UAE 3 points


England 7 points
Brazil 5 points
India 4 points
Belgium 6 points


Scotland 7 points
Thailand (2) 4 points
Afghanistan 5 points
Poland 5 points


Tomorrow's list of matches:


From 07:00 (UK time)


From 13:00 (UK time)


TV coverage: