Tuesday, 2 December 2014

UK Championship: Ding and Allen out as top seeds march on.

We're down to the Last 16 at the Coral UK Championships in York as the top seeds rolled on to give us a fantastic line-up in round 4 at the Barbican. The Last 32 started off on Monday afternoon with routine wins for Judd Trump over Fraser Patrick and a fine performance from John Higgins to beat Matthew Stevens. That evening Ricky Walden made back to back centuries in beating Ken Doherty comfortably while Shaun Murphy continued his good form to hold off a Jack Lisowski fight back winning that match 6-4, while Marco Fu beat Dechawat Poomjaeng on one of the non-televised arena tables. Onto Tuesday afternoon and it was routine stuff again for the likes of Neil Robertson and Ronnie O'Sullivan, while Graeme Dott produced some stunning snooker to whitewash Robert Milkins. It was on Tuesday evening that the shocks came with Ding Junhui losing 6-5 to James Cahill despite James once leading 5-1, while Mark Allen lost out 6-4 to Rod Lawler who came back from 3-0 behind.

These are all of the results from the Last 32 in full:

Neil Robertson 6-2 Peter Ebdon
Graeme Dott 6-0 Robert Milkins
Stuart Bingham 6-5 Joel Walker
Ricky Walden 6-1 Ken Doherty
John Higgins 6-2 Matthew Stevens
Anthony McGill 6-5 Nigel Bond
Matt Selt 6-4 Rory McLeod
Ronnie O'Sullivan 6-2 Ben Woollaston
James Cahill 6-5 Ding Junhui
Mark Davis 6-5 Joe Perry
Judd Trump 6-3 Fraser Patrick
Rod Lawler 6-4 Mark Allen
Shaun Murphy 6-4 Jack Lisowski
Marco Fu 6-3 Dechawat Poomjaeng
Stephen Maguire 6-2 Mark Williams
David Morris 6-2 David Gilbert

This has set up a fantastic line-up for the Last 16 across Wednesday and Thursday with all the matches now being on Televised tables as we get down to a two table set up for the remainder of the event. This is how the Last 16 draw looks with tips as always provided (not always successfully, especially not this week) by myself.

Last 16 Draw: (Picks in bold)

Neil Robertson Vs Graeme Dott
Stuart Bingham Vs Ricky Walden
John Higgins Vs Anthony McGill
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Matt Selt
Mark Davis Vs James Cahill
Judd Trump Vs Rod Lawler
Shaun Murphy Vs Marco Fu
Stephen Maguire Vs David Morris

We're well into this tournament now but there are still plenty of top contenders left in the tournament for this title and I'm expecting to see plenty of brilliant snooker for the rest of the tournament as the battle to win the first triple crown event of the season finds another gear. I'll be back on Friday morning for a preview of all of the Quarter-final games in full and a look back on the action on Wednesday and Thursday.

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