Wuxi Classic 2012 - Day 1

Selby takes a good start

The green baize gladiators returned into the arena, this time the location being in far, far away China in the city of Wuxi for the first edition of the Wuxi Classic (as a ranking event, of course).

If last year Mark Selby was leaving this competition after beating Ali Carter in the final, thus winning the event, this year he's started his Chinese race in order to reproduce that previous result.

Ironically enough Selby had to face the man who mercilessly beat him 10-3 at the Crucible this year, Barry Hawkins, but this time things went pretty smoothly for the Leicester player whose neck problems seem now just like a bad memory (90% bad memory, 10% still there, as the man himself admits).

The interval found Selby in charge at 3-1 after hitting in runs of 62, 120 and 57 and although the Pink Army member tried to come back into the match, he didn't manage it entirely, Hawkins winning just one single frame before Selby used a century break of 101 to go one away from victory and an 88 to seal it.

At the opposite corner, a player whose latest achievements have ranked him like a very dangerous opponent, lost his battle in front of wild-card Zhu Yinghui. I'm taking here about Michael Holt who got hammered 5-1 by the 16-year-old local player, almost in the same way Dave Haolrd got the identical 5-1 treatment from Rouzi Maimaiti.

Jamie Burnett obtained a 5-3 victory in front of Jin Long, Rod Lawler beat Li Hang 5-2, while both Robert Milkins and Fergal O'Brien recorded the same scoreline by playing Chen Feilong and Lu Haotian respectively.

Today the action continues with:

7.30am
13 Neil Robertson v Jamie Burnett
WC1 Ken Doherty v Lu Ning
11 Stuart Bingham v Peter Ebdon
18 Mark Allen v Rouzi Maimaiti
 
12.30am
14 Ding Junhui v Mark Davis
WC3 Michael White v Zhou Yuelong
19 Allister Carter v Fergal O'Brien
10 Martin Gould v Jamie Cope
* all hours are UK time

TV coverage: