Baird and Gray Show Class In Opener as Knowles Falls
Sam Baird and David Gray, both relegated from the professional tour last year showed glimpses of their class in the opening round of this year’s Betfred.com world championship at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.
Devonian Baird made light work of his match against Colin Mitchell. The early exchanges were a little scrappy and in fact it was Mitchell who nicked the first frame with a brown to black clearance.
Baird then won the next two with a highest break of 28 in each before turning on the style in the next with a 124 followed by a 64 and adding the sixth to complete the win and move within one match closer to the Crucible.
One down and six to go for Baird as he next faces Neil Selman for the right to play Reanne Evans.
Gray made slightly heavier weather of his match with David Singh.
The Londoner won the opener before Singh went 2-1 ahead with the help of a break of 62 in the third.
Gray responded to level at the interval and when they resumed play Gray hit the front with a superb 113 break. That seemed to derail the former Scottish Open champion and Singh took two in a row again to lead by one with two to play.
In frame eight, nine of the 15 reds were potted without a colour and with Singh leading by 28 points to 9 on the green, Gray pulled out a green to black clearance t keep the match alive and force a decider. (Much to the referee’s delight – we’re sure!)
The decider, as expected, was a typical last frame affair with unforced errors and plenty of missed opportunities. Eventually, it was Gray who potted the blue to put the macth beyond the Nottingham-man’s reach.
Gray will now take on Ali Bassiri in round two.
Bassiri was in scintillating form in his first round match against Tony Brown.
The East London potter made breaks of 15, 34, 25, 11, 9 and 20 before rounding off victory in the seventh frame with a 43.
Ian Stark also put his name in the draw for round two after beating Leeds’ Paul Cavney by five-frames-to-two, finishing off with a break of 50 in the last.
Stark will now face Stephen Rowlings, who also played on the Tour last year. Rowlings overcame Phillip Minchin without dropping a frame despite managing a top break of just 39.
Romford’s number three, Del Smith looked to be cruising against former world number three, Tony Knowles after taking the opening three frames with consistent if not high scoring visits.
Knowles though, put the brakes on by winning the last before the interval and halved his deficit when thry resumed by taking frame five.
Smith then moved to within one of victory with a fine break of 91, only for Knowles to peg him back again by taking the next on the black.
Smith appeared to be getting edgy in the next and Knowles took advantage, taking the scrappy affair to level at 4-4.
Knowles got in first in the decider, and in fact created four separate scoring chances, from which the one-time Pin-up of snooker could amass only 41 points.
The self-proclaimed Delvis made the most of the let off and sealed a famus win with a great break of 89 and set up a tie with either Les Dodd or Stephen Ormerod.
