Asian Trio Stay On Course
China’s Liu Chuang and Xiao Guodong along with Noppon Saengkham from Thailand stayed on course to claim one of sixteen places at the final stages of the Wyldecrest Parks Welsh Open in Newport next week.
Chuang was first through to round three, following his first round win against fellow countryman Anda Zhang with a tight 4-3 win against the highly rated, Anthony McGill.
McGill last week made his debut at the final stages of a ranking tournament was brought back to earth and was quickly trailing by three-frames-to-one despite making a 103 break in frame two.
The Scot rallied to win the next two and force the decider but Chuang made the ‘miss’ rule work to his advantage forcing his opponent to making a total of eight fouls. The young Chinese player made a break of 29 to put the match out of McGill’s reach and set up a third round meeting with Dominic Dale.
Guodong won a scrappy opening frame against Northern Ireland’s Patrick Wallace, followed with a break of 124 in the second and stole the next on the black to take a 3-0 lead.
Wallace, one of the most intelligent players on the circuit and a former world championship quarter-finalist then found some form making breaks of 69 and the joint highest so far, 137 to trail by one with two to play.
The sixth frame was a tense battle of attrition lasting over 40-minutes which the Belfast-man took on the colours to force the decider.
Some excellent safety play early on from the Guodong forced the first scoring opportunity making a solid break of 49 which laid the foundations of securing the win and moving to within two wins of a place in Newport.
Saengkham’s passage was a lot smoother as he eased past Adrian Gunnell without dropping a frame and making breaks of 68, 62, and 57.
Elsewhere on day two of qualifying Jimmy White faced a stern test on paper against Glasgow’s James McBain who the previous day had made a 137 of his own.
The Whirlwind though was in no mood for messing about and played solidly to claim a four-frames-to-nil win and set up a match with Shoot-Out finalist, Robert Milkins.
Jack Lisowski comfortably saw off Liam Highfield (4-1) and will now play Fergal O’Brien with Martin Gould awaiting the winner.
Jamie Jones won the Battle of Wales, beating Michael White by four-frames-to-two.
Stoke’s Dave Harold produced a typically workmanlike performance, taking over three hours to book his place in the next round seeing off Kuldesh Johal by four-frames-to-three. After losing the opening frame Harold was able to maintain a one-frame advantage over his opponent and will now face Mike Dunn.
There were also wins for Ian McCulloch, Jimmy Robertson, Alfie Burden, Paul Davison, Joe Jogia, Rod Lawler, Matthew Selt, and David Morris.
