By elliott west
With day one out of the way and a shock first round exit for Ronnie O’Sullivan at the hands of Dominic Dale, the competition now has begun to simmer.
In the afternoon’s play John Higgins drew Lu Ning and the game turned into a slugging match with Ning competing well in all fields of Higgins’ game. The first six frames were shared leaving the match evenly matched at 3-3. However with LU ahead in the seventh frame a safety battle ensued and Higgins used his experience to bring out Ning’s errors and won the frame. Leading 4-3, Higgins only needed one more frame to win. Higgins looked pained as his opponent snatched the next with a 27 break and a 80-0 score line. So the match came down to a deciding frame and Higgins took the bull by the horns and won frame and match 5-4 to the disappointment of Ning. A brave effort by the Chinese opponent and a player to watch out for in future tournaments.
Elsewhere there were wins for Thepchaiya Un-Nooh who beat Zhang Yang, 5-1, Ken Doherty unfortunately couldn’t make it two wins and lost to Mark Allen, 3-5, the Iranian player Hossein Vafaei continued his great form by winning his match against Lyu Haotian, 5-1, Xiao Guodong beat Harvey Chandler, 5-0, my friend Alfie Burden has a great win against MeI Xi Wen, 5-2 and Dominic Dale who booted out Ronnie yesterday couldn’t manage to continue his good run and lost to Fergal O’Brien, 3-5.
In the evening’s session Judd Trump hoped to continue his impressive first round win now pitched against Sam Craigie. Trump having already won on Chinese soil this season, a victor in the International Championship hoped to plough on, but on match statistics the head to head had both Trump and Craigie tied at one match each.
Craigie had also produced an impressive 141 break in his career history but couldn’t compete with Judd’s four 147 breaks and had only 54 career centuries compared to Trump’s 638. The world ranked 63 Craigie had a lot to prove in this match against the current number one. Despite a 24 point lead Craigie broke down and Trump started to motor and took the first frame with a well crafted break. Trump then took the second frame with a 113 break, leaving Craigie out in the cold. The next frame left off from the last and Sam was left welded to his chair as Trump knocked in a 144 break.
Craigie dug deep and took his first frame to make it 3-1 at the interval. Craigie then won the next to draw it back to 3-2. Trump then pinched the next frame to make it 4-2 but Craigie clawed
another one back as Trump couldn’t make it over the winning line. Sam then pulled another one back to make it 4-4. In the end though Judd pulled out all the stops and clambered over the winning line, final score 5-4, Trump.
Other wins came for Michael Holt who beat Luca Brecel, 5-2, Stuart Carrington won his match against Yan Bingtao, 5-1, Zhao Yuelong v Ben Woolaston, 5-1, Kyren Wilson beat Robbie Williams, 5-2, Ali Carter defeated Igor Fugeiredo, 5-1 and Jack Lisowski won his match against Luo Honghao, 5-1.
A great display of snooker and tomorrow will only get better!
