7.9.09

DOHERTY'S BRIGHT START

Ken Doherty’s excellent start to the season suggests he has now adapted to life at the qualifiers and has managed to rediscover a positive frame of mind.

Wisely, Doherty played in just about everything he could in the run up to the Shanghai Masters and, nicely match fit, he eased through the wildcard round today with a 5-0 defeat of Adiyta Mehta.

The Dubliner began the new campaign 44th in the world rankings and a precarious 56th on the provisional list.

He won only two matches last season and just two frames in his four matches at Prestatyn.

For a player so used to the big arenas, Pontin’s was a come down but it looks like he’s over that now and that could spell trouble for some of the game’s top players.

Neil Robertson would not have chosen the ever tenacious Doherty as his first round opponent in Shanghai.

In short, Doherty has fallen about as far as he is going to – for now at least – and could be worth backing to turn a few of his younger rivals over in the season to come.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dave you didn't do Liang justice in commentary earlier. The match where he got 4 centuries including a 147 also included two other total clearances of 139!

stuartfanning said...

Any chance for the Eurosport producers in Paris to get better picture quality out of the Chinese broadcaster? Plus a request that they keep the score strip up on all matches!

Anonymous said...

Hey Dave,

Like Stuart says, there is still room for improvement at Eurosport's coverage on Snooker.

I noticed Ken won the 2nd WSA tournament which this time was 6 reds. How appropriate, considering it's Ken's business which is launching the 6red World Championship.

Also, do these tournaments pay the same winners cheque of £5,000. Or is it different to each tournament?

Thanks, Joe

Anonymous said...

I noticed too that the picture was better yesterday during the interval of the Liang match when they showed the Bond match. I watched on Eurosport HD (which obviously isn't in HD) but the picture quality between the two matches was very noticable and much better on table 2.