Thursday 24 April 2014

World Championship Day Six.

Day Six at the dafabet World Championship finally brought an end to the first round as well as the opening shots been fired in round 2..

In the last of the first round matches Neil Robertson showed he is a real contender for the title here this year with a fabulous display of break building against Crucible debutant Robbie Williams in securing a 10-2 victory. Yes it could be argued that he wasn't been put under any pressure from an opponent who seemed to freeze on the games biggest stage,but you can't be but impressed with a display that included four more centuries,bringing his season total to 97. Among these was a superb 140 the highest of the tournament so far.

He will surely face a stiffer test when he comes up against Mark Allen in round two,but on this evidence he may well take some stopping here.

Earlier Dominic Dale won a match at the Crucible for the first time since the year 2000 when he rounded off a 10-5 win over Mark Davis. Leading 7-2 overnight Dale won the opening two frames of the afternoon to extend his lead to 9-2 before a brief rally from Davis closed it to 9-5.There was to be no big comeback though as Dale secured the the win in the next.

If this afternoons session is anything to go by,the second round of this years championship is where things start to come to the boil,with Mark Selby & Ali Carter serving up eight frames of high quality

Carter was quickest out of the blocks taking the opening frame to lead 1-0.From here it was Selby who started to find his game,winning two in a row to go 2-1 and that became 3-1 when he won the fourth on a respotted balck. That seemed to be a pivotal moment as he extended his advantage to 5-1 ,but Carter rallied late to leave things beautifully poised going into the mornings second session.

5-3 is also the overnight score in the other second round match to begin tonight,but its not to the man you might expect ,as its Joe Perry who holds that advantage over Ronnie O'Sullivan. It was always a case in this one that for Perry to have a chance,he needed a good start and that is what he got here against an unusually out of sorts O'Sullivan, Of course this sort of situation can bring its own pressures,but Perry seemed to be handling things well as he opened a 4-1. Ronnie at this stage rather belatedly found some form taking the next with a century ,before taking the next to make it 4-3. Perry though kept his composure to end the session with a deserved lead ,They resume tomorrow afternoon in what should be a fascinating session.

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