Defending champion Ricky Walden is out of the International Championship after losing his held over Last 128 match 6-4 to Tian Pengfei while Stuart Bingham was thrashed in the Last 64 round 6-2 by Yu De Lu. Meanwhile Mark Selby, Shaun Murphy, Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui all made it into the Last 32 relatively comfortably, despite a scare for Ding in his held over Last 128 tie against Sam Craigie which he eventually won 6-4.
Zhou Yuelong also came through beating Martin Gould comfortably and against the odds 6-2, while Michael White survived a scare to losing 4 frames in a row having led Dechawat Poomjaeng 4-1, only to find himself 5-4 behind before winning 6-5. Paul Hunter Classic champion Ali Carter fell foul to the seemingly improving Jack Lisowski, and Matt Selt was thumped 6-1 Dominic Dale. Marco Fu won quite comfortably 6-2 in what could've been a tough game with Matthew Stevens, especially when the pair were level at 2-2 at the mid-session break.
Here are all of the results from the first two days in full:
Wildcard Round:
Noppon Saengkham 6-5 Lin Shuai
Daniel Wells 6-2 Fang Xiongman
Ken Doherty 6-2 Chen Zifan
Wang Yuchen 6-4 Aditya Mehta
Remaining Last 128 Games:
Tian Pengfei 6-4 Ricky Walden
Liang Wenbo 6-3 Alex Taubman
Ding Junhui 6-4 Sam Craigie
Stuart Bingham 6-1 Steven Hallworth
Last 64:
Tian Pengfei 6-2 Cao Yupeng
Liang Wenbo 6-4 Andrew Higginson
Kyren Wilson 6-4 Jamie Cope
Mark Allen 6-4 Joe Swail
Mark Williams 6-3 Ian Burns
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 6-5 Ross Muir
Zhou Yuelong 6-2 Martin Gould
Sanderson Lam 6-0 Michael Wild
Barry Hawkins 6-4 Chris Wakelin
Jimmy Robertson 6-2 Darryl Hill
Jack Lisowski 6-5 Ali Carter
Marco Fu 6-2 Matthew Stevens
Oliver Lines 6-4 Noppon Saengkham
David Gilbert 6-5 Xiao Guodong
Ryan Day 6-3 Mark Joyce
Ding Junhui 6-2 Craig Steadman
Mark Selby 6-3 Mike Dunn
Anthony McGill 6-0 Sean O'Sullivan
Lee Walker 6-4 Daniel Wells
Michael White 6-5 Dechawat Poomjaeng
Graeme Dott 6-2 Jamie Burnett
Peter Ebdon 6-0 Ken Doherty
Fergal O'Brien 6-3 Tom Ford
Neil Robertson 6-2 Martin O'Donnell
Shaun Murphy 6-2 Luca Brecel
Jamie Jones 6-2 Kurt Maflin
Michael Holt 6-4 Rod Lawler
John Higgins 6-2 Zhao Xintong
Joe Perry 6-1 Wang Yuchen
Dominic Dale 6-1 Matt Selt
Ben Woollaston 6-5 Robbie Williams
Yu De Lu 6-2 Stuart Bingham
What this all leaves is an exciting line-up with an interesting range of matches and players in the Last 32 round of best-of-11 matches in Daqing. This is the draw as it looks right now with my thoughts on the games:
Last 32 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Liang Wenbo Vs Tian Pengfei - The top match in the draw sees an all Chinese clash between Liang Wenbo and Tian Pengfei. Liang has had a close couple of matches already this week and been tested by both of Alex Taubman, and particularly against Andrew Higginson at 4-4, before Wenbo pulled away in the final two frames with two good contributions. Tian Pengfei meanwhile is in fine form of late, he's already seen off Ricky Walden with some very good snooker and beat Cao Yupeng comfortably in the Last 64. Tian was the runner-up at the Ruhr Open and that seems to have given him a great deal of confidence, which he took on to the Last 16 stage of the Asian Tour event last week and he's provisionally risen well inside of the top 64. I expect this match to be another close one for Liang, yet I think his lower ranked Chinese opponent will just be a little bit strong.
Mark Allen Vs Kyren Wilson - A real quality clash is the second on the bill, as last year's runner-up Mark Allen takes on Shanghai Master Kyren Wilson. Kyren had a tough first round match against Jamie Cope as expected and it won't get any easier against Mark, as he knocked in some good breaks beating Joe Swail in the first round this week. These two met of course in the semi-finals at the Shanghai Masters and Wilson won 6-1, but I expect that Allen will play a lot better this time around than he did on that occasion, and spurred on by that loss my prediction is for him to edge out a close contest.
Mark Williams Vs Thepchaiya Un-Nooh - This battle shapes up on paper as one that will be a high scoring, fluent affair. Mark Williams won comfortably against Ian Burns in the first round and has been in good form for a while, as I said in my tournament preview blog, without really kicking on. Everyone now knows what Thepchaiya Un-Nooh is capable of, and even though he struggled against Ross Muir there were still plenty of sizeable breaks in there from the Thai. Un-Nooh is very attacking and unless that comes off a very high percentage of the time or he gets fortunate in a match, he won't beat the top players too regularly because they will be able to punish him. So, to beat Mark he's going to have to be on top form.
Zhou Yuelong Vs Sanderson Lam - Here we have a match between two much lower ranked players in Zhou Yuelong and Sanderson Lam. Starting with Lam, he may have won 6-0 in the opening round against Michael Wild, but it doesn't seem as though Lam did anything particularly special to achieve that and Wild still had his chances. However, Zhou Yuelong was much more convincing in beating much tougher opposition too, when he played Martin Gould. Zhou is a very talented young player as he showed when winning snooker's World Cup in June. I make Zhou a big favourite to make it through this one also.
Barry Hawkins Vs Jimmy Robertson - Barry Hawkins played out a high scoring 6-4 win against Chris Wakelin in round one, with both players making plenty of 50+ contributions, while Jimmy Robertson made a 141 on the way to his first round win against Darryl Hill, so a high scoring match can be expected again here. Jimmy showed good form last week in making the semi-finals of the Asian tour event, while Barry has played well so far on the European Tour this year. I also expected big things from Hawkins at the start of the week, and the way he played against Wakelin, I don't think I have a clear reason to change my mind on that call here.
Marco Fu Vs Jack Lisowski - Up next I believe we have a little clash of styles in some ways between Jack Lisowski and Marco Fu. Marco was impressive in his first round win versus Matthew Stevens and he showed some signs of his scoring form returning to him when he played in last weeks Asian Tour event. Jack Lisowski will be an equally good match for him, especially as he starts to work more on the tactical and mental side of the game with Terry Griffiths. Progress has been made from what you can see of his results this season, particularly by beating Ali Carter. However, Rome wasn't built in a day and for Jack that means that he can't expect too much too soon so playing Fu presents new challenges and he'll have to be on top scoring form to beat another player of great experience and resilience.
David Gilbert Vs Oliver Lines - Again here we have two players that you wouldn't normally expect to be meeting in the Last 32 of a major event. Gilbert had a bit of a lean time before his performance at the Ruhr Open to make the semi-finals of the event and he came so close to the final also. Again David is a fantastic player when in form, and he's a match for many of the top players when playing like we know he can. Oliver Lines meanwhile hasn't had the most convincing start to his season, and two good frames at the end of his match with Noppon Saengkham saw him just pull away there but against Gilbert he will need to up his standard from that of which he's shown in losing to Jimmy White in the Shanghai qualifiers and to a Chinese amateur in last weeks AT event to pick out just two of his results. I think David will certainly his chances of making further progress after another good win against Guodong in round one.
Ding Junhui Vs Ryan Day - Ding Junhui and Ryan Day is always a match that jumps out at you in a draw, anytime that they meet and simply because of all of the great matches they've played over the years. Most recently they played out another thriller in the Shanghai Masters where Day was unlucky to lose 5-4, but that was revenge in a way for when Day beat Ding by the same score at February's German Masters. Ryan has always been a quality player and always mixes it well with the top players like Ding, and when you have a decent record like Day does against someone of Ding's pedigree it gives you great confidence coming into a game. Ding was a little shaky against Sam Craigie in his held over Last 128 tie, while the Welshman was at his high scoring best against Mark Joyce. Having won the Asian tour event recently Ding will be confident, but he's also played a lot of snooker in a short space of time so you do have to think that the more he gets pushed, the less there is going to be in the tank to offer a response and that may be the crucial ingredient, in a match that past experience suggests will be close.
Mark Selby Vs Anthony McGill - Whenever these two guys meet from now, you can't really help but think back to their World Championship Last 16 match of this year which was won by Anthony. Things have moved on since then, and neither player has hardly shot out of the gates this season so far. According to Sean O'Sullivan's view on Twitter, his 6-0 loss to McGill in round one was the "least one sided whitewash you'll ever see" which is interesting, while Selby appeared to be at his granite like best against Mike Dunn after a slow start to the match, and that's a good sign for Mark that he's going to be very tough to beat this week, and that could be evident as this match goes on.
Michael White Vs Lee Walker - This all-Welsh tie may look like an obvious call on paper, but it really is far from that. White has hardly been impressive lately, and he really struggled to kill off his match against Dechawat Poomjaeng in round one, so much so that from 4-1 ahead he had to come back from a frame down to win 6-5. Lee Walker was very gritty in coming back from 5-3 behind to beat Mark Davis in the qualifying round around a month ago, and the same was true today as he seemed to be getting outplayed by Wells trailing 3-1 at the interval, only to take a 5-4 lead before having to come back after the evening session to finish and win 6-4. If the game goes as scrappy as that one, this would most likely be Lee's best chance of winning, as Michael will really need to find his usual fluency to get through this one, but from the younger Welshman's viewpoint I think he'll have that extra bit of quality to get the job done.
Graeme Dott Vs Peter Ebdon - In my view this looks to be one of the matches of the entire round, especially after the way they both played in round one and the historic games they have played previously. Ebdon knocked the stuffing out of Ken Doherty with his heavy scoring, adding three breaks of 80+ to a century. Meanwhile, I think Jamie Burnett could've got closer to Graeme than the 6-2 score suggests, but that doesn't take anything away from some of the clinical scoring that the 2006 world champion displayed. It's always a good game between these two, but that will be doubly the case if they both show that same fine form. I believed at the start of the week that Peter would go very well this week in Daqing, and his encouraging display against Ken has only added fuel to the fire that was started by his record in the International as well as his shining record in China overall.
Neil Robertson Vs Fergal O'Brien - At the beginning of the week I didn't expect much from Neil Robertson and looking through the draw I sighted this as a possible exit point for the Australian. It was really only until the last three frames of his match against Martin O'Donnell that he started to knock in the big breaks (with two centuries) and take total control of the game, but against someone as tough as Fergal this will be nowhere near as easy. O'Brien scored very well in his 6-3 match against Tom Ford, which on paper could've been much closer than it ended up. Fergal always poses a good challenge for the top players, and has twice come from behind to beat an out of form Stuart Bingham already this season. I have a feeling that there could be an upset brewing in this one if Neil isn't consistent with his game throughout the match.
Shaun Murphy Vs Jamie Jones - Shaun and Jamie usually have some very close an interesting games. Jones beat Murphy at the 2012 World Championship when he ended up making the quarter-finals and beat Shaun again at this years Welsh Open. Meanwhile, Shaun was the winner in their only Chinese meeting at this years China Open as well as hitting a 147 against the Welshman in the 2014 Gdynia Open. Jamie looked impressive with the breaks he notched up against a tough player in Kurt Maflin. Meanwhile, Shaun missed out on a maximum break after 11 reds and blacks in frame three on his way to a 6-2 win against Luca Brecel (because every match has been a struggle for Shaun lately you know). If Shaun really warms into this week like we all know he can, he's going to be a very dangerous customer and even though this is a tough match, I expect Shaun to shine.
John Higgins Vs Michael Holt - Michael Holt is another one of Terry Griffith's new crop for this season and already he's showing good signs, especially in a character testing 6-4 first round win in a marathon against granite Rod Lawler. John could've had a much tougher game with Zhao Xintong than he did in round one, but his safety play just appeared to be several leagues above the youngster and that was always likely to be the deciding factor. It seems to me that Holt is gaining in confidence this season, and is really looking forward to every test on the baize which this will be by far. If you couple some of Holt's wins this season, with some of John's inconsistency as he gets older and is not playing to the standard that we became so used to in the past, then Holty has a good chance of getting another very good win under his belt.
Joe Perry Vs Dominic Dale - Both of these two guys won 6-1 in the opening round, but they seemed to do so in much different styles. Dominic was very clinical against tougher opposition in Matt Selt and to beat someone rising as fast as Selt has been in the last year, as convincingly as that is a great effort. Joe meanwhile had a much easier match with Wang Zepeng, only needing one 50+ contribution in his 6-1 win, as he appeared to just pick up the pieces from Wang's mistakes in what should've been a much closer contest. Joe hasn't been shining as bright at the start of this season as he did last year, while Dale showed good form in last weeks AT event, so much so that he'll very much fancy his chances in this match.
Ben Woollaston Vs Yu De Lu - The final match in the Last 32 is between Ben Woollaston and Bingham's conqueror Yu De Lu. By Bingham's own admission he was poor in that 6-2 loss and it wasn't as if Yu completely outplayed him as both guys had plenty of chances. The Chinaman hasn't had the best time of things in the last season or two and I think he will have to improve if he's to beat Woollaston if he's anywhere near his usual standard. Woollaston didn't have an easy game with Robbie Williams, but to come from 5-4 behind showed good character, especially as Robbie has become pretty tough to beat and did most of the running, so that will give Ben a lot of confidence and I fancy him to be too strong for Yu in this one.
With all of those matches being played tomorrow in sessions of 8, it's going to be an action packed day of snooker in Daqing as the field gets narrowed down from 32 to 16 ahead of Wednesday's action, and this is the point in the week where you feel that things really start to get going with all players at least a match in, and all the pleasantries of wildcard and held over matches have been dealt with. With serious money at stake, it's a time of serious business for the players. I'll be back with my next update at this time tomorrow to see which 16 remain at the International Championship.
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