Big Day For Lisowski
Jack Lisowski continued his impressive debut season by reaching the final stages of the Wyldecrest Parks Welsh Open at Newport Centre
The Gloucester born professional now based in Romford has now reached the final stages of a major ranking event for the second time in as many tournaments.
The popular youngster is sure to have plenty of crowd support as he takes on world number one, John Higgins who will be defending the title he won twelve months ago.
Lisowski, who is fast becoming the game’s hottest new property, took the opening frame in a match of the highest quality with a break of 72 before Gould hit back with a brace of 80-plus breaks to lead 2-1.
The world number 57 levelled the scores at ‘Desmond’ (2-2) with a run of 59 and moved to within one of victory with a superb century.
Frame six could have gone either way but it was the Pinner Potter who scraped over the line to force the decider.
Gould had the first scoring opportunity but failed to make the most of it and a break of 62 laid the foundations for a Lisowski. A few minutes later and the nineteen-year-old sealed a well-earned win.
Elsewhere, the formbook was upset with seeded players Judd Trump, Mark Davis and Liang Wenboalso failing to safely negotiate the treacherous qualifying rounds.
Trump was lured into the trap of seasoned campaigner, who controlled the pace of the match from start to finish.
A 19-and-a-half minute opener went the way of the Liverpudlian and he went further ahead in the next which took well over half-an-hour.
Trump threatened to get into the match in the third, pouncing on an error from Lawler and winning it with a quick fire 96.
It was not to be though, as Lawler stuck to his game plan and slowed the pace of the game right down taking over 90-minutes to win the next two frames and book his place in next week’s draw.
Davis began well, winning the first frame with breaks of 65 and 42.
The ’Spaceman’ drew level with a break of 50 and went ahead with a run of 91 in the third.
Dale extended his lead, clinching frame four on the pink and move within a single frame of a meeting with Peter Ebdon next week.
Hastings’ Davis had other plans and halved the deficit in the next with a break of 97. That only served to delay the inevitable as Dale won a scrappy sixth frame and clinch an important win that will help him regain his place in the world’s top 32.
China’s number two has had a terrible season after starting just inside thetop-16, he now finds himself on the slide at number 27.
After pulling out of the recent shoot-out in Blackpool for ‘Family reasons’, wenbo didn’t look himself against Stoke’s Dave Harold.
It is less than twelve months since Wenbo outplayed Harold in the final qualifying round of last season’s world championship, but today he could manage a total of just 50 points as Harold produced a solid performance making breaks of 64, 64, 55, and 48 to ease into the last 32.
Barry Hawkins made the perfect start to his 2011 Welsh Open campaign with a break of 143 in the opening frame of his match with Andy Hicks. The Kent player failed to maintain such high standards but did enough to win four-frames-to-nil and set up a clash with 2009 Welsh Champion, Allister Carter.
Photo: jack-lisowski.com
