If you ask any player in the modern game what is their least favourite experience and the response would be the qualifiers. Whether you are a player who is fighting to get onto the tour or remain on it, the nerves start to jangle when they have to travel to a venue where in reality they would rather escape through the nearest fire exit. History has produced the likes of the Norbreck Hotel or Prestatyn holiday camp where players were cramped into qualifying cubicles in large, cold rooms for hours on end, playing multiple opponents that ultimately could lead to defeat when they crawl though, mentally battered and bruised to the first round.
Another location that has made the headlines in recent days is the Barnsley Metrodome. This is a place that people loathe to travel to but unfortunately if they want to get to the first round of the China Championship, this is a must. With qualifiers come heartache and several of the greats have fallen by the wayside as a result. Early casualties have been Stuart Bingham beaten by Northern Ireland’s Jordan Brown, 5-3 and Ali Carter lost to Alexander Ursenbacher from Switzerland. Bingham especially has a few qualifying scars this season with Bingham losing two of three of the first events of the season. He also missed out on the Riga Masters. The 2015 champion will now have to wait for the Six Reds Championship in Thailand at the start of September and the Shanghai Masters the following week for a chance to win more silverware.
Other players who nearly fell over the snooker precipice are John Higgins who crawled across the line against the rejuvenated Andy Hicks, 5-4 and Barry Hawkins who found himself behind in his match against Barry Pinches but fortunately came back in the match to win, 5-3. However it wasn’t to be the same outcome for Jimmy White who sadly lost to the rapidly improving Hossein Vafaei from Iran. White twice led in the match 3-1 and 4-2 but Vafaei reeled off the last three frames to win 5-4. This left White still trying to reach the first round of a 2019/20 event. Better news for Jimmy is that he is the newly crowned world seniors champion after a 5-3 victory over Darren Morgan at the iconic Crucible Theatre.
Snookerfans.co.uk player Kurt Maflin kept up his impressive start to the season with a 5-2 victory over Billy Joe Castle. Kurt fired in breaks of 54, 71,74 and 75 on route to victory and here is what he had to say to howeveryoulikebreak.com reporter Curtis Braithwaite after the game….
Unfortunately qualifiers are a must for players and the cruel aspect makes or breaks a player. Some might agree and others not with the system but it definitely creates players that are hardened to the knocks of snooker and can inevitably progress a player to the new or established territory of the match tournament setup. Any player’s career will have ups and downs but it the wins that they want to remember and not the defeats. This sport can be cruel but any player knows that they will have to play out of their skin to raise a trophy. Otherwise they will be buried beneath the snooker history books of time, a distant memory and forgotten.
Performance of the week goes to Alexander Ursenbacher who produced a fine display of long potting and kept his cool to win the deciding frame against Ali Carter and here is that match for you to enjoy….
China Championship qualifying results
Thursday August 15
10am
Chris Wakelin 5-2 Lee Walker
Kurt Maflin 5-2 Billy Joe Castle
Mark Davis 2-5 Luo Honghao
David Gilbert 5-2 Peter Lines
Joe Perry 5-4 Alfie Burden
2.30pm
Mark King 5-1 Rod Lawler
Anthony Hamilton 5-4 Alex Borg
Mark Allen 5-1 Eden Sharav
Hossein Vafaei 5-4 Jimmy White
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 5-0 Soheil Vahedi
7pm
Martin Gould 5-3 Ashley Carty
Ryan Day 5-4 Duane Jones
Mark Williams 5-1 Andy Lee
Mike Dunn 5-2 Thor Chuan Leong
Friday August 16
10am
Lu Ning 5-1 Igor Figueiredo
Scott Donaldson 5-1 Adam Stefanow
Martin O’Donnell 5-3 Steve Mifsud
Xiao Guodong 5-1 Peifan Lei
Barry Hawkins 5-3 Barry Pinches
2.30pm
Ali Carter 4-5 Alexander Ursenbacher
Peter Ebdon 3-5 Sam Baird
Zhao Xintong 5-3 David Grace
Liang Wenbo 3-5 Mitchell Mann
Lyu Haotian 5-3 Louis Heathcote
7pm
Liam Highfield 5-2 Si Jiahui
John Higgins 5-4 Andy Hicks
Andrew Higginson 5-4 John Astley
Stuart Bingham 3-5 Jordan Brown
Michael White 3-5 Joe O’Connor
Saturday August 17
10am
Li Hang 5-0 Bai Langning
Sunny Akani 5-0 Simon Lichtenberg
Graeme Dott 5-4 Jackson Page
Noppon Saengkham 5-0 Nigel Bond
Robbie Williams 5-1 Fraser Patrick
2.30pm
Yuan SiJun 5-4 Craig Steadman
Shaun Murphy 5-2 Fan Zhengyi
Ben Woollaston 5-3 Zhang Jiankang
Fergal O’Brien 4-5 Kishan Hirani
Luca Brecel 5-1 Zhang Anda
7pm
Matthew Selt 5-1 Kacper Filipiak
Neil Robertson 5-3 Gerard Greene
Ricky Walden 5-3 Xu Si
Matthew Stevens 5-3 Jamie O’Neill
Stephen Maguire 5-3 Ian Burns
Sunday August 18
10am
Gary Wilson 3-5 Jak Jones
Mark Joyce 5-4 Elliot Slessor
Marco Fu 5-4 James Cahill
Daniel Wells 5-2 Chang Bingyu
Anthony McGill 5-1 Chen Zifan
2.30pm
AlanMcManus 4-5 Tian Pengfei
Kyren Wilson 5-1 Jamie Clarke
Michael Holt 5-1 David Lilley
Stuart Carrington 4-5 Harvey Chandler
Zhou Yuelong 5-0 Riley Parsons
7pm
Robert Milkins 4-5 Sam Craigie
Jimmy Robertson 2-5 Dominic Dale
Jack Lisowski 5-0 Oliver Lines
Michael Georgiou 4-5 Hammad Miah
