What a difference a year makes!
Twelve months ago, Daniel Wells was winning deciding frame after deciding to move within one frame of a Crucible debut.
After losing his opening match to David Gray in the 2010 Betfred.com World Championship, at Sheffield’s English Institute of Sport, he is resigned to a season off the Tour in 2010/11.
Gray was always in control of the match leading by six-frames-to-three frames at the interval, despite Wells looking the heavier scorer and more fluent of the two.
In the evening session the Welshman rallied and reduced his deficit to just one frame at 8-7. Gray, a former ranking tournament winner, managed to call on his experience by winning the 16th on the colours and then making only his third half-century of the match to claim victory.
Wells will no doubt be devastated to miss out next season, but don’t be surprised to see him back on in 2011/12.
Elsewhere at the EIS, the Maltese Falcon, Tony Drago won a nineteenth frame decider against the talented Xioa Guodong from China.
Drago is making the most of his return to the big-time after falling off tour himself a couple of years ago.
He has hauled himself up the rankings with consistent performances throughout the season. His latest win has moved him up into the top 30 on the one-year list.
It was an uncharacteristically low scoring performance by Drago, who only made two breaks over 50 in the 19 frames.
The final frame however, was vintage Drago though, as he made breaks of 33 and 44 in little over eight minutes.
England’s Chris Norbury and Craig Stedman both bagged a brace of centuries but only managed to win four frames each as both lost against Chinese opponents. Mei Xi Wen getting the better of Norbury and Andha Zhang proving to strong for Steadman.
The world championship usually provides its fair share of ‘wars of attrition’ as players fight for survival in the biggest event of the season. Three matches ran over the eight hour mark, with Mark Boyle beating Patrick Wallace (10-7), David Hogan beating Li Hang (10-9) and Brendan O’Donoghue overcoming Matthew Couch (10-8), which would have easily exceeded nine hours had it gone all the way.
Boyle will now face Jimmy White as the Whirlwind embarks on his 30th world championship campaign!
