Players Tour Championship Event 7 (2011) - Day 1 (the qualifiers)

May the PINK Force be with you!

Yesterday marked the start of a brand new PTC, this time number seven seeing the snooker balls rolling down the green baize. 
The location is set at the lovely South West Snooker Academy from Gloucester and for the first time in the history of the PTCs, the players won't have to wear those "dreadful" waistcoats and bow-ties, but pink polo t-shirts. It's no secret that the South West Snooker Academy team fights of a good cause (trying to raise awareness over breast cancer) and they even have a special tournament fully dedicated to raise money for it - The Pink Ribbon Tournament.

However, this time an entire ranking competition has been turned into a very pinkish and special event that also runs under the name of "Kay Suzanne Memorial Trophy". Suzanne, for those of you who don't know the story, was Mr. Paul Mount's loving sister, who unfortunately died from breast cancer at only 39, in 2002. 

The players have been potting balls with the name of HiQ fast fit network logo on their sleeves, the entire organizational team hoping that this event, besides being a snooker success, will also attract donations that will be given to World Snooker's official charity Haven House Children's Hospice, as well to Breast Cancer Care, charity picked by the SWSA team.

According to PTC tradition, the first two days are dedicated to the qualifying rounds and that's what the players have been up to yesterday as well as today. But let's see how everything went during the very first pink day.

Reanne pi(N)cks her first victory

It can be said that the majority of the Pink Army soldiers had a very good start, for Reanne Evans scored her very first victory against Michael Leslie 4-2, followed Jamie O'Neill who hammered Joel Walker 4-1 and Kyren Wilson who defeated a very tough opponent, Chen Zhe 4-2. Michael Wasley got a bye due to the fact that Jon Birch withdrew from the event, but sadly Shane Castle missed the opportunity to go further in the competition after being crashed 4-0 by Mitchell Mann.

The "Amazing Two" (aka. Ben Harrison and Allan Taylor) ended their first day of cue battle with another one being guaranteed to happen today, both of them consuming all their frames in order to obtain a 4-3 victory; Harrison beat Stephen Craigie, while Taylor saw Kishan Hirani out.

Among those responsible for the whitewashes of the day were Chris Norbury who defeated Shaun Wilkes, Patrick Wallace who ended Callum Lloys's PTC dream, Duane Jones who beat Robert Tickner, Nick Jennings who won over George Marter, but also Sam Harvey who crashed Hans Blankaert.

The Thai Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon started his snooker journey with another beautiful victory, a 4-2 against Terry Challenger while the Chinese Anda Zhang registered a 4-1 scoreline against Thomas Emes.

Below you can check Day 1 list of results:

9am

Not before 11am

Not before 1pm

Not before 3pm

Not before 5pm

Not before 7pm

Not before 9pm

Today's matches schedule:

10am
Not before 12pm

Not before 2pm

Not before 4pm
*all hours are UK time