It was a bad day for the Irish contingent as all three went out in the final round of qualifying for the Shanghai Masters.
David Morris, who had superbly come through three rounds already to get to this stage, ran out of steam as he succumbed to a whitewash defeat to Martin Gould – ironically the player who, at times, I compare Morris to on this site.
1997 world champion Ken Doherty was only a little better as he took one frame off China’s Yu Delu while fellow Dubliner Fergal O’Brien was pipped in a decider 5-4 by Mark Joyce.
Arguably the biggest result of the day, though, was David Gilberts’s 5-4 victory over former world no.1 Mark Williams.
Williams had just recently dropped out of the top 16 and although that doesn’t have as much quantifications as it used to, it still meant that he had to qualify for this event – a task that was too far for the Welshman.
Elsewhere, it was a good day for the Chinese contingent as Xiao Guodong and Cao Yupeng, members of the team who won gold medals at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, both emerged victorious to book their trip back to the homeland.
England’s Kyren Wilson and David Grace qualified for the final stages of a tournament for the first time while countrymen Mike Dunn, Peter Lines, Michael Holt, Andrew Higginson, Mark King and Joe Perry all join them on the flight out east.
Ali Carter, in his first tournament after overcoming a cancer scare, scraped past Adam Duffy 5-4 while Wales’ Ryan Day easily outgunned Jimmy White 5-1.
The full draw can be viewed by clicking here.
