Shanghai Masters Day 2
Snooker can be a brutal sport and the wildcard round proved my point. Top players were sent packing with early exits for Ali Carter, Stephen Maguire and today in the race for the last sixteen, more familiar heads were to roll with Liang Wenbo polishing off Stuart Bingham, 6-4. The carnage was not to stop there as David Gilbert continued to show excellent form and made light work of the novice, Cao Jin, whitewashing him 6-0. Gilbert, a previous Berlin Masters ‘ finalist is a player that should in theory go all the way buy whatever reason, just fails to take the title. A frustrating player but maybe this might be the tournament where he shines.
Seismic tremors continued to reverberate in Shanghai when Jack Lisowski who has been tipped for the top for some time took on Mark Selby. On paper, Selby looked like the clear favourite but recent form has eluded Mark from match wins and on the day, it was Lisowski that proved he had the credentials to carve out a win. This must be a bitter blow for Selby who was probably hoping that this first big tournament would be act as a vehicle to a return to good form but sadly this was not to be the case and Selby crashed out of the tournament, a 3-6 loser.
On another table, two giants of the game were drawn against each other. Shaun Murphy and Mark Williams have both sprung back into form and this match showed that there wasn’t much to choose between them. In the end, the match went to a decider and Murphy was the player to get out of the stalls fastest. This really was an epic tussle and perhaps behind Mark’s calm nature, he was kicking himself that the crucial frame went Murphy’s way. The match ended 6-5 to Shaun and he now awaits a match against Jack Lisowski.
The match that everyone had been waiting for was Ronnie O’Sullivan’s clash with Zhang Yi. Ronnie showed no signs of rustiness in this game and it often looked like a practice session with Ronnie dominating the table and freezing Zhang out of the match. Before long O’Sullivan was 4-0 up at the interval. The onslaught raged against the wild card after the interval and took back to back centuries in the last two frames to take the match with a 6-0 whitewash, clearing the table in the last with a roar from the Chinese crowd when he potted the fins black and clambered to get his autograph.
The last match of the day was between Xiao Guodong and Kyren Wilson. This is another of those matches that was evenly weighted and Xiao had a number of chances to go ahead but Wilson found the winning path first and before you know it, the match had end 6-4 to Kyren. With plenty of centuries in this session, this really was a thrilling day of snooker and shows why once again the Shanghai Masters is one of the top tournaments of the season.
Seismic tremors continued to reverberate in Shanghai when Jack Lisowski who has been tipped for the top for some time took on Mark Selby. On paper, Selby looked like the clear favourite but recent form has eluded Mark from match wins and on the day, it was Lisowski that proved he had the credentials to carve out a win. This must be a bitter blow for Selby who was probably hoping that this first big tournament would be act as a vehicle to a return to good form but sadly this was not to be the case and Selby crashed out of the tournament, a 3-6 loser.
On another table, two giants of the game were drawn against each other. Shaun Murphy and Mark Williams have both sprung back into form and this match showed that there wasn’t much to choose between them. In the end, the match went to a decider and Murphy was the player to get out of the stalls fastest. This really was an epic tussle and perhaps behind Mark’s calm nature, he was kicking himself that the crucial frame went Murphy’s way. The match ended 6-5 to Shaun and he now awaits a match against Jack Lisowski.
The match that everyone had been waiting for was Ronnie O’Sullivan’s clash with Zhang Yi. Ronnie showed no signs of rustiness in this game and it often looked like a practice session with Ronnie dominating the table and freezing Zhang out of the match. Before long O’Sullivan was 4-0 up at the interval. The onslaught raged against the wild card after the interval and took back to back centuries in the last two frames to take the match with a 6-0 whitewash, clearing the table in the last with a roar from the Chinese crowd when he potted the fins black and clambered to get his autograph.
The last match of the day was between Xiao Guodong and Kyren Wilson. This is another of those matches that was evenly weighted and Xiao had a number of chances to go ahead but Wilson found the winning path first and before you know it, the match had end 6-4 to Kyren. With plenty of centuries in this session, this really was a thrilling day of snooker and shows why once again the Shanghai Masters is one of the top tournaments of the season.
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