Tweet
Ssb - day 5 - good friday for hendry?
Stephen Hendry's 5-0 demolition of Ryan Day passed almost unnoticed in yesterday's excellent second session at the Sanyuan Foods China Open that saw a 147 for Neil Robertson, the exit of world champion John Higgins at the hands of Mark Williams and a quite simply brilliant match between Ding Junhui and Mark Selby.
Hendry is through to his first ranking event quarter-final since last season's Betfred.com World Championship.
His opponent is Mark Allen, a feisty, highly talented Northern Irishman who reached the Crucible semi-finals last season.
Hendry and Allen play the same sort of game, so it will be an open, attacking and hopefully entertaining encounter.
Hendry's problem for the last few years has been consistency. He's played very well in some matches but been unable to keep it going throughout whole tournaments.
Allen can also blow hot and cold and tends to get down on himself when things aren't going well, but he's terrific to watch and will surely win a ranking title sooner rather than later.
Ding very nearly let things slip against Selby when he missed the blue clearing up to win 5-2 but prevailed in a nervy eighth frame to ensure it was a happy 23rd birthday.
When he beat Peter Ebdon 5-0 in the 2005 China Open, a somewhat insensitive Chinese journalist asked the 2002 Crucible champion the following question:
'Mr. Ebdon, how come you win the World Championship?'
His deadpan response was, under the circumstances, creditable. 'I was lucky,' he said.
Of course, the true answer is because Ebdon allied his talent to a never-say-die attitude and ability to play well under pressure.
Even so, with crowd support Ding will fancy his chances again.
Williams impressed, as he has for most of the season, in taking out Higgins and will start favourite against Marco Fu.
Ali Carter has crept through to the quarter-finals without much fuss and faces his fellow Essex man Mark King, a player who is always difficult to beat.
Their match could become quite drawn out. Then again, it might not but I wanted to shoehorn in a reference to 'the long Good Friday' before ending this post.
More...
Hendry is through to his first ranking event quarter-final since last season's Betfred.com World Championship.
His opponent is Mark Allen, a feisty, highly talented Northern Irishman who reached the Crucible semi-finals last season.
Hendry and Allen play the same sort of game, so it will be an open, attacking and hopefully entertaining encounter.
Hendry's problem for the last few years has been consistency. He's played very well in some matches but been unable to keep it going throughout whole tournaments.
Allen can also blow hot and cold and tends to get down on himself when things aren't going well, but he's terrific to watch and will surely win a ranking title sooner rather than later.
Ding very nearly let things slip against Selby when he missed the blue clearing up to win 5-2 but prevailed in a nervy eighth frame to ensure it was a happy 23rd birthday.
When he beat Peter Ebdon 5-0 in the 2005 China Open, a somewhat insensitive Chinese journalist asked the 2002 Crucible champion the following question:
'Mr. Ebdon, how come you win the World Championship?'
His deadpan response was, under the circumstances, creditable. 'I was lucky,' he said.
Of course, the true answer is because Ebdon allied his talent to a never-say-die attitude and ability to play well under pressure.
Even so, with crowd support Ding will fancy his chances again.
Williams impressed, as he has for most of the season, in taking out Higgins and will start favourite against Marco Fu.
Ali Carter has crept through to the quarter-finals without much fuss and faces his fellow Essex man Mark King, a player who is always difficult to beat.
Their match could become quite drawn out. Then again, it might not but I wanted to shoehorn in a reference to 'the long Good Friday' before ending this post.
More...