Players Tour Championship Event 12 - Hendry lands in quarter-finals

Master Hendry lands in quarter-finals

Packed audience, cracking shots and a seven-time world champion getting a spot for the quarter-finals, that's how the first day of the PTC 12 looked like.
 
If last year edition of the German Masters has taught us something is that Germany loves snooker. And today that was proved once more as the Munich's crowd was on duty all day long forming a packed audience hungry for snooker.

On the other hand, the players didn't disappoint them either, some really cracking shots being played, along with great comebacks and tight results.

Only six out out of a total of eight matches (for that's how many the Last 16 round has) were played today, the remaining two taking place tomorrow, along with the quarter-finals ones. And I'm going to start with the last match of the day, because ... well ... I want to.

Marco Fu - close to win the match

The name is Hendry, Stephen Hendry. He is a seven-time world champion and he recently dropped out of the famous Top 16. He needs to qualify for the ranking events and his form is not what it used to be. But somehow, that sparkle of geniality hasn't totally vanished. It's there and it's shining pretty strong.

The Scotsman took on last year Masters runner-up Marco Fu. The first frame was cashed taking advantage after Marco Fu's safety shot went wrong, the second one with a top break of 30, while the third was won with runs of 45 and 42. He seemed in a pretty stabile form, not a great one, but enough to win him the match.

But everything changed. As always, Hendry was leading 3-0 and kept on missing shots. Fu was there to make something out of them and breaks of 105 and 78 were enough to pull him back a couple of frames. He was now trailing 3-2 and with a good chance to force a decider.

Holt and Campbell, the tightest match of the day

A crucial 6^th frame started with a very slow cue action, only normal considering what was at stake. However, Hendry regained some of that confidence he had at the beginning of the match, confidence that materialised itself in a 75 break that was won him the match 4-2, but also got him a place in the QFs.

Hendry is now facing a PTC champion, Michael Holt, who beat Marcus Campbell 4-3, after the Scotsman put on quite a snooker show and made a prefect comeback from being lead 3-1 with a bit of help from a 95 and a 55 break.

Walden continues his journey towards victory

Ricky Walden, the 2011 UK Championship semi-finalist got a well deserved victory of 4-2 over Xiao Guodong. The battle of cues started with Ricky taking the first frame with a break of 79, while Xiao responded with a 41 to collect the second one.

Still, the 2008 Shanghai Masters champion didn't give up and retook the lead after firing in runs of 70 and 63. The Chinese player pulled back one frame, but the 6^th one (a very loooooooooong one) was cashed by the Englishman.

A good start for PTC 1 runner-up, Joe Perry

The PTC 5 winner, Andrew Higginson saw off Norway's snooker ambassador Kurt Maflin 4-2, the same happening with Mike Dunn v. Mark Allen's match, this season's UK Championship runner-up beating Dunn 4-2, while Joe Perry hammered David Gilbert 4-1 to get a place in tomorrow's quarter-finals.

Below you can check the list of results:


As I told you at the beginning of this article, there are still two more Last 16 round matches to be played, the quarter-finals started short after them as you can see below:

Last 16

9am
David Grace v. Martin Gould

11am
Stephen Maguire v. David Gray

1pm

Ricky Walden v. Joe Perry

3pm
Mark Allen v. Grace/Gould
6pm

Maguire/Gray v. Andrew Higginson

8pm
Michael Holt v. Stephen Hendry
*all hours are Germany time

TV coverage for the UK:

Also you can see the boys online at: www.sportlemon.tv