Wilson out, but Maguire remains in Crucible fight

Stephen Maguire is still in the hunt for a top 16 seeding at the World Championships after victory over Jack Lisowski put him into the Last 16 and just two wins away from leap frogging Ding Junhui into 16th place in the rankings.

 

Kyren Wilson meanwhile did not keep up his hopes of doing the same after losing quite emphatically 5-1 to Rod Lawler. Ryan Day was also in the hunt but lost the last three frames of a 5-3 defeat to Ricky Walden. Robert Milkins and a host of other players in the 20's needing a final or to win the event were amongst those to perish on day three in Beijing.

 

Shaun Murphy and Barry Hawkins also fell. Both had their Last 64 matches rescheduled to Wednesday morning in China after competing in the latter stages of last week's Players Championship finals in Manchester. Hawkins lost out in his 5-4 to Tian Pengfei who went on to beat Michael Holt 5-2 to make the last 16. Shaun Murphy did beat David Grace 5-3 only to lose out in the evening session to Mark King by the same score line.

 

There were nice wins however for higher seeds in Judd Trump, Marco Fu, John Higgins and of course the world champion Stuart Bingham, while Graeme Dott ended the run of 15 year old wildcard Yuan Sijun with a 5-2 victory.

 

Last 32 Results:

 

Dominic Dale 5-3 Darryl Hill
Stephen Maguire 5-2 Jack Lisowski
Alfie Burden 5-4 Rhys Clark
Rory McLeod 5-2 Mike Dunn
Judd Trump 5-1 Jimmy Robertson
Marco Fu 5-0 Robert Milkins
Martin O'Donnell 5-1 Matthew Selt
Mark King 5-3 Shaun Murphy
Graeme Dott 5-2 Yuan Sijun
Noppon Saengkham 5-4 Ben Woollaston
John Higgins 5-2 Mark Joyce
David Gilbert 5-1 Lee Walker
Ricky Walden 5-3 Ryan Day
Tian Pengfei 5-2 Michael Holt
Rod Lawler 5-1 Kyren Wilson
Stuart Bingham 5-3 Ian Burns

Last 16 Draw: (Picks in Bold)

Stephen Maguire Vs Dominic Dale
Rory McLeod Vs Alfie Burden
Judd Trump Vs Marco Fu
Mark King Vs Martin O'Donnell
Graeme Dott Vs Noppon Saengkham
John Higgins Vs David Gilbert
Ricky Walden Vs Tian Pengfei
Stuart Bingham Vs Rod Lawler

Marco Fu was good once again today after his three centuries against Yu De Lu and his match with Trump should be a good one, after he played some nice stuff in his first match of the week after receiving a walkover. There is a fantastic opportunity for both guys in the McLeod/Burden and King/O'Donnell games with Burden being most impressive in a 5-4 win against Rhys Clark with the deciding frame being the only one where one of the two players did not make a break of 50+. Dominic Dale has also been in decent form and all of the pressure is of course on his opponent Stephen Maguire who needs two more wins this week to get back into the top 16 in the seedings for the World Championship. Further down at the bottom of the draw Stuart Bingham has shown good signs of a timely return to form, while Higgins and Dott have been solid so far and I expect that to continue. Ricky Walden was able to ease himself into the week after a first round walkover, following his appearance in the Players Championship Final. Walden is always a decent threat in China, the scene of his three ranking titles to date.

 

 

Another interesting line-up then for the latter stages of this tournament with just five players out of the 16 currently ranked inside of the world's top 16. An opportunity for plenty of guys then to go far in this event or perhaps for someone to win their first ranking event title.