UK Championship 2011 (the qualifiers) - Day 1

Day 1 - let there be competitive snooker!

While our snooker hearts were beating next to the legends playing in Peterborough this weekend, back in Gloucester, at the South West Snooker Academy the qualifying rounds for the second most important tournament of the season were starting.

 
The cues' battles have begun on Saturday with only two pre-qualifying matches that saw Daniel Wells whitewashing the Polish player Kacper Filipiak 6-0 and ... pam, pam, pam Robin Hull beating Lucky Vatnani 6-4. Can you imagine these two were in the same room, at the same time, playing each other? I mean, after all this time when Lucky was very unlucky not getting his VISA and Robin had to pull out of several PTC events, now that was a real snooker treat.
 
And since Robin hasn't played for such a long time it seems he's eager to win. The very next day, on November 6, he hammered a very tough opponent, Yu Delu 6-1 to book himself a snooker meeting with Peter Lines later today.

 

Happy Chinese in his way to the UK Championship

Thailand's men Passakorn Suwannawat and Dechawat Poomjaeng didn't get through the next stage of the qualifiers all together. Unfortunately Dechawat was brought down by a very determined Adam Duffy, 6-3 and only Suwannawat managed to get himself one step further in the competition after defeating Joe Meara by an incredible 6-0.

 
China on the other hand, has reasons to smile. As usual, because when the qualifying rounds kick off the first to put their nose in front are the little Chinese players. It's true that not all of them make it until the end, but they are capable of some really cracking upsets along the way.

 
Tian Pengfei was the first to win his opening match by applying a 6-4 scoreline to Belgium's Bjorn Haneveer, closely followed by Cao Yupeng who beat Matthew Couch 6-2 and Li Yan who obtained a 6-4 result in front of Stuart Carrington. Unfortunately, not the same happened for Yu Delu, who, as said before, got hammered by Finland’s Hull.

 
And since the event is being held at the lovely South West Snooker Academy I can't overlook Pink Army’s achievements from the last couple of days.
Well, they did pretty well. The Pink soldiers seem very determined to get a place in the main tournament and with the couching they've been receiving at the Academy, I'm sure they have a good chance.

 

The Pink Army strickes again!

The youngster Michael White managed to end Daniel Wells' UK Championship dream with a 6-4 scoreline, Adam Wicheard did the same to Paul Davison but with a 6-2 result, while Andrew Norman ended up on a rough decider against Scotland's Scott MacKenzie, decider that he won 6-5.
 
Sadly, their comrades Andrew Pagett and Liam Highfield weren't that lucky, Andrew losing a close match with Sam Craigie 6-5, while Liam got beat 6-3 by Sam Baird, who hit in breaks of 134 and 100 to earn himself a place in the next set of matches.

 
A match that really caught my attention was the one that was given between Norway's ambassador Kurt Maflin and Ireland's fine player David Hogan. David managed to hit the highest break of this competition, a beautiful 139, and played wonderfully well. Still, in the end, Kurt came back for a 6-4 victory. Brilliant snooker played by these two.

 
Results so far:

 
Saturday November 5

6pm


Sunday November 6

12pm


 
7pm


 
Today's match schedule:

 
12pm


 
7pm

*all hours are UK time

 
The lads can be followed on www.sportlemon.tv