PTC Grand Finals Day Two.

Day two at the PTC  Grand Finals and after a day of shocks yesterday the question was would today be the same? The answer was yes!

World no.1 Judd Trump fell at the first hurdle in Galway for the second consecutive year after going down 4-3 to Alfie Burden.This was a strange match with Burden looking confident early on in opening up a 2-0 lead.Trump managed to steady the ship to take the next and then leveled at 2-2 before Burden again edged ahead 3-2.Trump,who at this stage had still only managed a top break of 30,somehow leveled again after Burden had missed numerous chances to clinch the win.A decider it was to be then and Burden took full advantage of his first opportunity to seal the win with a fine break of 113.

Back to the drawing board for Trump then with the World Championship drawing ever closer.For Burden,his reward is a quarter final clash wit h Xiao Guodong who beat Graeme Dott 4-1.Guodong was a quarter finalist here last year while playing with a broken hand, took full advantage of a below par Dott to seal clinch the relatively straight forward win.

When the draw was made for this event ,the stand out fixture appeared to be the clash between John Higgins and Ali Carter and it was to live up to the hype.Higgins appeared to be flying out the blocks in the first frame only to break down allowing Carter to .clear up and take a 1-0 lead. Higgins leveled in the next but it was Carter who opened a lead again at 2-1.The next could have gone either way but it was again Carter who won it to go 3-1.Higgins fought back with an 83 to close to 2-3 but it was Carter who won the next to gain a 4-2 win.Carter who missed the recent World Open through illness ow awaits the winner between Marco Fu and Mark Joyce who play on Thursday.

It looked for a while as though Ding junhui would be joining the list of casualties in the last 32 here when he trailed Andrew Higginson 3-1 but the Chinese fought back bravely and to clinch seal a 4-3 win.As he surveys the damage from the last two days you feel Ding will be quietly fancying his chances here this week and now awaits the winner of the Robert Milkins v Anthony Mcgill match in the last 16.

It was a long days snooker at The Bailey Allen Hall but unfortunately for the large crowd who stayed past midnight to cheer on Ken Doherty were to be disappointed as he went down 4-2 to Kurt Maflin.This was a pretty high quality match though.and Maflin had to play very well to see off the gritty Dubliner.Maflin will now play Rod Lawler in the next round.

Day Three see's the end of the round of 32 and the start of the last 16.You feel the crowd will be once again treated to a long days action.