Hendry Gives Home Fans Plenty To Cheer
Stephen Hendry gave home fans more to cheer as he made it three wins out three for Scottish players with a comfortable three-frame-to-nil win over Mark Davis in round two of the 12Bet.com World Open in Glasgow.
The seven time world champion joins Glaswegians, Marcus Campbell and Alan McManus already through to the last 16 at the SECC.
Scottish representation could be boosted further with James McBain and Stephen Maguire facing Ricky Walden and Judd Trump respectively in the arena on day five.
Davis was no match for Hendry who made the highest break of the match in frame two with a 70 and disposed of the current six-reds world champion in under an hour.
At the start of the tournament, Hendry, the most successful player in the modern era was unhappy with the shortened format carrying such a high tariff in world ranking terms.
He was concerned that a poor result here might cause him to miss his first Wembley Masters since the late 80s, but with wins over Bjorn Haneveer and Davis, it appears that his fear of missing the game’s biggest invitation event were unfounded.
Elsewhere, Welshman Mark Williams installed himself as the bookmaker’s second favourite to win his second major title of the year with a convincing win against Allister Carter.
Two-time world champion, Williams, won two scrappy frames to lead 2-0. Carter opened with a 72 break in the third only to be matched by Williams who cleared the table forcing a re-spotted black.
The Welshman was ‘put into bat’ by his opponent and he elected to try to cut black into the top left hand pocket. It failed to drop and left an easy pot for the Shanghai Masters champion to pot and halve the deficit.
In the next Williams created the first opening and took full advantage, making a decisive 95 break to oust the world number two and put his name into the hat for a place in the quarter finals.
Ding Junhui beat Jimmy Michie three-frames-to-one including a break of 109.
Former world number three Stephen Lee and 2002 world champion, Peter Ebdon also progressed, disposing of Nigel Bond and Fergal O’Brien.
