Day four didn't quite have the fireworks of yesterday,but on a day where three matches finished the last 16 is really starting to take shape and we have some real mouth watering clashes in store.
John Higgins & Ding Junhui will no doubt both have slept soundly last night,leading as they were 7-2 over Martin Gould & Zhou Yeulong respectively ,but as we saw last night with Marco Fu that is not necessarily a decisive advantage.
The one thing you do need though if you are to come back from such a deficit is a bit of help from your opponent.and whereas Luca gave that extra bit assistance to Marco in their match,neither Higgins or Ding were likely to crumple under the pressure in the same way,leaving Gould & Zhou wondering what might have been had they had better opening sessions.
The scores in the end had Higgins running out a 10-6 winner & Ding a.10-5 one
Ding will now face his fellow countryman Liang Wenbo in the last 16 after Liang came through a real test against Stuart Carringtom.
Indeed a shock looked very much on the cards here as,playing quite beautifully, Carringinton won five in a row,which included three consecutive centuries to go from 2-0 down to 5-2 in front.
From here though crucially Liang took the last two of the session to reduce his arrears to 5-4 going into the second session.
The big scoring didn't continue into the night session as a real nip and tuck battle started to unfold,but from 7-7 it was the more experienced Liang who pulled away to clinch a 10-7 victory
In matches starting today Judd Trump discovered,if he didn't already know,that nobody is going to roll over and hand him this title,he's going to have to earn it.This was really a session of two halves,as before the interval Trump played like defeat was out of the question storming to a 4-0 lead,but perhaps beginning to believe his own infallibility he started to push the boat out too far & Rory McLeod took full advantage . reeling off the last five to take a 5-4 overnight lead & leave thing perfectly poised going into tomorrow morning
Finally 2006 champion Graeme Dott will go into the second session of his match with Ali Caret with a three frame advantage leading as he does 6-3 after their first session.
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