by elliott west
After the shock exit of Judd Trump yesterday minds will have adjusted to a new favourite, Ronnie O’Sullivan. Ronnie in his match against Thailand’s Noppon Saengkham didn’t actually play that well. He gave Noppon umpteen chances to kill off frames but Noppon wasn’t able to do so.
Watching from the audience with Damien Hirst to one side of me and John Higgins in front of me Ronnie didn’t look fluid in his cue action and won this match largely down to the multiple mistakes that his opponent made and not from consecutive break building. The 6-2 score line doesn’t reflect this and had Noppon gone the extra mile this result could have swung the other way. However a result is a result and Ronnie had to wait to see who his opponent would be between Ali Carter and Ding Junhui.
Ding actually played very well in his match and gave Ali very few openings. Not to say that Carter didn’t take his chances and was able to make some inroads into this match… but when it was too late. The game went 5-4 and then took on a very scrappy form before Ding eventually won. Ding could have contained his opponent more and in fairness it should have been 6-1 to the Chinese player but for the fact that he took his eye off the ball momentarily and let Carter nick the odd frame.
I am always very critical of Ding because I know how good a player he is. If he could cut these faults out of his game Ding could be in high contention for another UK Championship title. However he continues to let these faults block his path to title victories. Ding won but he will still have to improve if he is to beat Ronnie O’Sullivan in his next match.
Elsewhere, Graeme Dott was playing Stephen Maguire and I have to be honest and say this was a very disjointed and drawn out affair. Neither player could edge ahead at the start of the match and they were bogged down in low scoring frames as neither could achieve a frame winning break. This match included a re-rack and looked like a match that could be seen in your local club. Maguire eventually edged the match out, 6-2 but as the teacher used to say in the school report, “there is room for improvement” if Maguire is to win his next match.
Liang Wenbo also won his match against Eden Sharav, 6-4 and ended Sharav’s good run in this year’s tournament.
In the evening session Mark Selby came up against Martin O’Donnell. Martin outscored Selby in every department and this was proven by Selby’s stuttering play. He wasn’t able to dominate the match and the early part of the match was painful as one had to watch Selby fight to win frames. The frames were scrappy and lead to Selby taking a fragile 5-3 lead.
The difference came when Selby’s arm began to loosen cutting out his disjointed game and improving play in every department. Martin O’Donnell appeared to be playing with his back against the wall knowing that any small mistake would cost him the frame and in the end Selby’s experience led to a 6-3 victory.
Selby won’t be proud of the way he won this match and will have to work out all of his mistakes before he returns for his next match. There were also wins for Yan Bingtao who beat Jack Lisowski convincingly 6-3, Gary Wilson who eased past Joe Perry 6-1 and Michael White edged out Mark Davis 6-5.
