Welsh Open 2012 (the qualifiers) - Day 1

Sam Baird ready for some winnnings

It wasn't a busiest first day here at World Snooker Academy from Sheffield, but surely it was entertaining to watch, the players competing for a place in this year's Welsh Open tournament offering us whitewashes, tight scorelines and of course some pretty high breaks.

Can't imagine starting with anyone else but the 23-year old lad from Uffculme, Sam Baird. The Pink Army member not only hammered one-very-dangerous-Thai, on his real name Passawkorn Suwannawat 4-1, but he also went on to seal the victory with runs of 100 and 141. 

Baird has already qualified for the upcoming Chinese event Haikou World Open after winning no less than four matches and I'm pretty sure he wants a place in the Welsh Open as well. And with such a brilliant cue style, he was a very good chance.

We had three matches ended on a 4-0 result and all three of them had at least one Asian player hitting the ball. First stop was an all-Chinese-affair, where Tian Pengfei saw himself being whitewashed by his fellow-country Cao Yipeng, then the brave Pink soldier Andrew Norman went on crashing India's Aditya Mehta, only to see China Yu Delu doing the same to Belgium's prodigy Luca Brecel.

On the opposite corner, tension was rising as we also had three battles of cues which had all their frames being put into action. 

The "D" match, where Daniel Wells and David Grace engaged in, was finished on a decider won by the first named one, Norway's snooker ambassador Kurt Maflin saw off a very tough opponent, Stuart Carrington by the same 4-3 scoreline, while Daniel Morris ended Paul Davison's run after both of them scored a century break (Morris an 134 and Davison an 137).

Below you can check Day 1 list of results:

12pm
1 Tian Pengfei 0-4 Cao Yupeng
2 David Grace 3-4 Daniel Wells
3 Sam Craigie 2-4 Lucky Vatnani
4 Kurt Maflin 4-3 Stuart Carrington
5 Andrew Norman 4-0 Aditya Mehta
6pm
6 David Morris 4-3 Paul Davison
7 Andrew Pagett 1-4 Adam Wicheard
8 Yu Delu 4-0 Luca Brecel
9 Adam Duffy w/o Dechewat Poomjaeng
10 Passakorn Suwannawat 1-4 Sam Baird
The competition continues with Round Two and the match schedule is:

10am
11 Ben Woollaston v. David Gilbert
12 Adrian Gunnell v. Cao Yupeng
13 Jimmy Robertson v. Alfie Burden
14 Michael White v. Ian McCulloch
15 Mark Joyce v. Daniel Wells
16 Barry Pinches v. Lucky Vatnani

2.30pm
17 Peter Lines v. Rod Lawler
18 Tony Drago v. Kurt Maflin
19 Andy Hicks v. Andrew Norman
20 Liu Chuang v. Liam Highfield
21 Dave Harold v. Joe Swail
7pm
22 Xiao Guodong v. David Morris
23 Liu Song v. Adam Wicheard
24 Anthony McGill v. Yu Delu 
25 James Wattana v. Adam Duffy
26 Li Yan v. Sam Baird
*all hours are UK time

Please don’t forget that each session has two matches broadcasted live and you can follow the boys on www.sportlemon.tv