It
hasn’t been the best sporting weekend for Bradford with the city’s football
team losing 5-0 to Swansea in the League Cup final at Wembley.
Today
Bradford’s Simon Bedford takes centre stage at the Haikou World Open.
Bedford,
37, beat some good players just to qualify: Pankaj Advani, Peter Lines, Gerard
Greene and Ken Doherty.
He
is from a snooker playing family. Indeed, he once made a maximum break against
his own mother.
Bradford
is a strong snooker area. Their own Joe Johnson won the World Championship in
1986 and James Wattana was for many years stationed there when at the top.
Bedford
played at the Crucible 15 years ago but never quite hit the heights, with a
highest ranking of 63.
So days such as this will be special for him, not least after missing the back half of last season after sustaining injuries in a car accident.
He
plays Lu Haotian, the 15 year-old who reached the quarter-finals of the
International Championship as a wildcard last year.
In
today’s other TV matches, Ricky Walden, the Wuxi Classic champion, faces Peter
Ebdon, who defends his China Open title next month.
Mark
Davis tackles Robert Milkins, a semi-finalist in Haikou last season and Alan
McManus will hope to continue his resurgence against Lin Shuai.
8 comments:
Just woke up and turned on the TV. Unfortunately I had to turn it back off straight away when I saw Ebdon was playing Walden, since I can't risk falling back to sleep.
Ronnie makes his statement tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
Day 1 for ITV4
Shame they found Peter in a Pedestrian Mode.
Well done for staying with it at 3pm instead of showing "The Professionals".
It's a long shift for Neal Foulds so probably need a 4th commentator / analyst
But overall good start.
What is the point of flying snooker pros thousands of miles to China, to lose in front of a handful of people, some of whom are too busy on their smartphone to watch the matc?
What was Peter Ebdon's beef at the end of the match?
Poor Bedford, another player struck by the SSB curse. Have you considered asking players paying you not to have a written about them?
Joking aside, This Lu Haotian kid looks like a real prospect. Only 15and he's taking down a fair few experienced pros this season.
Whether that's because he doesn't have to worry abut ranking points or play in a Sheffield cubicle, like the main tour Chinese players or because he's just talented is something we'll have to see when he gets on tour.
Hi David. A great first day's play, in my view. A great win for Lyu, against Bedford.A good win for Milkins, over Mark Davis.
A good win for Ricky Walden, over Peter Ebdon. A good win for McManus aswell.
I am watching and recording coverage from both ITV 4, and, Eurosport.
Great to hear Clive Everton, in the commentary box, for ITV 4, in my view, aswell.
Hi David. To follow on from my previous post, McManus's win, was against Lin Shuai, ofcourse.
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