Two former world champions in Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stuart Bingham left it to the deciding frame to scrape through to the second round of the English Open in Crawley. Both players winning 4-3 in the seventh and final frame. Jamie O’Neill and Kacper Filipiak were the ones to fall short.
There were easy victories for many of the standout players in Round One. The likes of Barry Hawkins, Judd Trump, Neil Robertson, Marco Fu and Ricky Walden all had 4-0 victories.
Another former world champ in Mark Williams sailed through with Kyren Wilson winning as always. Mark Williams’ namesake, Robbie, also left Mark King for dead after defeating him 4-0 on Monday.
The biggest shocks of the opening games comes in the form of Ding Junhui losing out to Welshman Dominic Dale in a closely fought contest, using all seven available frames. Stephen Maguire also lost convincingly to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in a straight-frame match. Also, veteran Scot Allan McManus dumped out 17th ranked Ali Carter in a 4-2 victory.
Liverpudlian Rod Lawler is also out of the competition after losing out to Chinese Xiao Guodong 4-2 and Belgian Luca Brecel is out after being defeated by Polishman Adam Stefanow.
Round two is underway from 10am today with 32 matches in progress at staggered times. The standout fixture of the day is at 2pm this afternoon with Marco Fu entertaining Australian Neil Robertson.
Photo – Pixnio.com – Creative Commons Licence
