The 2023 Scottish Open has kicked off, the postponed qualifiers have all ended, and the game has been quite exciting. Ding Junhui took the lead in the opening game, and he swept David Grace 4-0 in less than an hour to advance to the second round, but Shaun Murphy was unlucky to lose to China's Liu Hongyu in the first round.
Meanwhile, the top players who were knocked out were Mark Allen, Mark Williams, Barry Hawkins and Robert Milkins. In addition, world No. 1 Ronnie O'Sullivan suddenly announced before the game that he had chosen to withdraw from the Scotland due to health reasons, and his opponent Lean Graham advanced to the second round without a fight.
I have to say that the qualifying rounds for the top players are extremely intense. Ding Junhui and Mark Selby took the lead, Ding Junhui's opponent was David Grace, and Mark Selby's opponent was Sean O'Sullivan. As we all know, Ding Junhui defeated Mark Allen, Mark Williams, and Trump in the British Championships to reach the finals in one fell swoop, but unfortunately lost to O'Sullivan and missed the championship.
It can be seen that Ding Junhui's competitive state has recovered a lot, and Ding Junhui still maintains a good feeling in this Scottish tournament, scoring 88 points, 55 points and 103 points in a single stroke for 4 consecutive games, and swept David Grace 4-0 in less than an hour to advance to the second round. Next, Ding Junhui will face Kendrick, looking forward to Ding Junhui's better performance.
Mark Selby played a little hard, falling behind 1-2 at the beginning, but finally won 3 games in a row to seal the victory 4-2 with a tenacious combination of offense and defense. Selby's results this season are not good, although he has not won the championship yet, but the British Open reached the final, the European Masters and the Shanghai Masters also reached the semifinals, and the British Championship advanced to the top 8, but unfortunately lost to Trump, who is in better form.
Of course, Scottish Cetrump played just as well, swept 4-0 to advance, and scored a game-high 142 points in a single stroke of the tournament so far. World No. 7 Sean Murphy is not so lucky, his opponent is Chinese player Liu Hongyu, Liu Hongyu opened with three consecutive strokes of 50 plus 3-0 at the beginning, and Shaun Murphy scored 62 points in a single stroke in the fourth game to pull back a game, but finally lost the fourth game 38-65, Liu Hongyu eliminated Sean Murphy 4-1 to advance to the second game.
Mark Allen, who had just won the single-game limited-time championship, also followed in the footsteps of Shaun Murphy, and was beaten out 2-4 against Jamie Jones. The most regrettable thing is Mark Williams, his opponent is Sam Craigie, and Mark Williams holds three match points 3-0 at the beginning. Starting from the fourth game, Sam Craigie was like O'Sullivan possessed, scoring 95, 64, 85 and 126 points in a single stroke, and winning the stroke to win 4 consecutive games against Mark Williams to seal the victory.
Mark Williams lost so badly!Barry Hawkins was the fourth top-16 player to be knocked out of the tournament, and his opponent was Pang Junxu, and the two were tied in the first four games, during which Barry Hawkins hit two shots to break 100. In the fifth game, Barry Hawkins won the victory and got the match point, thinking that Pang Junxu would stop there, but in the sixth game, 67 points in a single stroke dragged the game into a decisive game. In the seventh game, the two were extremely cautious, but Pang Junxu had the upper hand and finally locked up the victory 82-16 and advanced to the second round.
Robert Milkins, 47, ranked 14th, was beaten 0-4 by Mark Davis. So far, 5 of the top 16 players have stopped in the qualifying round. John Higgins, Brechel, Jack Lisowski and Kyren Wilson all made the cut.
Finally, there are 11 Chinese players, including Ding Junhui, who advanced to the second round, namely Yuan Sijun, Zhou Yuelong, Zhang Anda, Pang Junxu, Liu Hongyu, Lu Haotian, He Guoqiang, Xu Si, Si Jiahui and Xing Zihao.