world championship qualifiers

[dannyd0g]

The qualifiers for the qualifiers are underway. It seems old Tony Knowles never says die, even though he would have needed to win 7 matches to make The Crucible again. At least he won one match, only to be whitewashed 5-0 by Sean Storey in the next round though.

Tony Drago will be in action over the next couple of days. He has the toughest of draws : something of a wall of death he has to get through to reappear at The Crucible. If he manages to beat Issara Kachaiwong, he must then beat Ford, Walden and then Allen.

http://www.worldsnooker.com/tourname...awsheet-93.htm

[rivercard]

Tony Drago will be in action over the next couple of days. He has the toughest of draws : something of a wall of death he has to get through to reappear at The Crucible. If he manages to beat Issara Kachaiwong, he must then beat Ford, Walden and then Allen.

Yes, I couldn't believe that draw when I first saw it.. I don't think beating Kachaiwong will be easy, but I certainly wouldn't bet on Tony against Tom Ford, nevermind Walden or Allen. It's a shame he got such a draw at the WC as he really needs some ranking points quickly, or he will probably join Jimmy White and gets relegated from the Tour, which will mean his retirement from snooker I guess.
At least he's got pool to fall back on (not that he needs the money), and he still might have a few good years there.

[matoski]

I dont think Tony Drago cares about snooker anymore. He is one of the best pool players in the world nowadays. I just wish to see Andrew Higginson at the crucible.

[dannyd0g]

Some interesting results in today. Storey got hammered 10-1 by Patrick Wallace. Storey himself hammered knowles 5-0 in the previous round. While Knowles hammered his opponent 5-1 in the first round. I wonder whats the chances of Wallace getting hammered in the next round ?

Meanwhile another hammering was dished out today by Liu Chang : a 10-0 whitewash over Colin Mitchell. I wonder is the difference between some main tour and some PIOS players so huge that we are getting these massively one sided matches. Or maybe it has just been a good day for some main tour players.

[rivercard]

I must say that I don't really think these preliminary rounds make any sense at all. It's ok that the WSA would like to honor some coaches/players with this opportunity, but the results speak for themselves. Respect for Barry Stark, who is 65, and Stephen Ormerod for making their result a but more close, than the others though.

It might be better if every year the actual top 8/16 of the PIOS rankings would get a chance to play against some of the pros, because the standard of these prelims are pretty low to say the least. Or the two systems could be mixed, so everey WSA wild card would first play against a PIOS top player, and the winner could play in what is now called "Round 1".

Or even better: the WC is the most important and most prestigious event in snooker, so only the pros are allowed to play, the end.

[Semih_Sayginer]

thanks for the info DannyD

(also pics of (some of) the qualifiers on globalsnooker)

[dantuck_7]

I've just come back from Prestatyn and would pretty much agree that there is a mismatch in the early rounds.

It's hard to know exactly what the situation is with some of the players there. I managed to get to see everyone playing in the 3rd qualifying round and Round 1. Some players that stood out for me were David Singh and Barry Stark. Colin Mitchell beat David Singh (who looked fairly ill) but up against Lui Chuang, Mitchell was outclassed.

From todays matches Alex Davies looked very good and is definitely a player to watch out for. He didn't have any centuries but had several 40-60 breaks that looked very fluent. Safety was good also.

Other players from the early rounds who could have good runs are Lui Chuang and possibly Googins and Mark Joyce.

[superaussie]

when do matthew stevens and mark allen play their qualifying match and who are they likely to face ?

[Alex0paul]

Stevens and Allen play their games in March. Allen has a very tough draw against either Walden or Ford unless they lose beforehand.

[Cyril]

Fair play to 65-year old Barry Stark on winning a couple of matches.

[kellie-text]

Fair play to 65-year old Barry Stark on winning a couple of matches.

Absolutely!

I dont think the standard that far down in the qualifiers is that marvelous but to win a couple of matches at his age deserves credit!

[dantuck_7]

Here are the latest scores from todays matches (started at 10am).

Fernandez 6 - Burden 3
Morris 3 - Seanla 5
Jogia 2 - M.White 7
O'Neil 5 - Gould 4
Spick 2 - Goggins 3 (v.slow!!)
Walker 2 - Chaung 6
Drago 4 - Kachaiwong 5
Wenbo 6 - Woolaston 3

[dannyd0g]

Drago 9 - Kachaiwong 9

C'mon Tony !!

[Alex0paul]

Good win for Michael White. In the words of Kevin Keegan "I would love it if he qualified, love it."

[dannyd0g]

Drago narrowly looses 9-10.