2019 World championship qualifiers and draw

[Stony152]

Nice win for Luo Honghao. I watched the last 7-8 frames and after Fu leveled at 6-6, Luo played very well to take the match. Talented 19 year old.

[Rane]

Marco Fu defeated with 10 -7 by Lou Honghao that´s the first big surprise of the qualifiers so far. Great result for Honghao.

[Rane]

Anthony Hamilton beats James Wattana 10 Frames to 9 does this mean that James Wattana is off the main tour or will he get another two year wild card. If he drops off that will be another Veteran off the tour and will he go to Q School. Also with The win looks like Anthony Hamilton is safe for another year.

I think he has one of those wild cards for legends of the game (just like Jimmy White), so he´ll probably be offered a new one if he wants to. It looks like he´s still a big name in Thailand.

[InTheShires]

Have to agree - from the bit I watched of her today she was dreadful

[Stony152]

McManus match..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7aJ...ature=youtu.be

[InTheShires]

Alexander Ursenbacher

I see Alexander Ursenbacher been comprehensively beaten today - he’s a bit of an enigma. Definitely got talent - saw that when he beat ROS earlier this season, but seems to lose a lot more than he wins. Not sure why - doesn’t strike me as a player who suffers from nerves particularly. Maybe he doesn’t practice enough to compete at the top level I’m not sure, or there is something else. Interested to get others thoughts...

[Neil Taperell]

He was down the club practising on Wednesday night and from what I saw was striking the ball very well .

Had a couple of brief chats with him and I don’t believe that he lacks confidence , maybe just needs to string a few matches together . Just not consistent enough at the moment , wins a few matches in a tournament then struggles for the next few tournaments.

[Mark187187]

Looking at the frame scores, seems like Ursenbacher was in and scoring in a lot of the frames, 9 or 10 put of the 14, but broke down on 30 or 40. When I've seen him play before, its been kind of the same, and the reason he's lost so much. I know he's had a couple of decent results, but they're few and far between, and his age is less of an excuse than when he first came on the tour in his teens. I'd be inclined to say he doesn't have what it takes, but with so few young players coming through outside of China, maybe he has a chance if he can stay on the tour long enough.

Good to see Jimmy pushing forward after a close start to his session. If he was chalked to play anyone but Ali Carter in his second round I'd hold out a slim hope of a return to the Crucible. As it is though, looks like another year will go by, taking the tally to 13. Pretty sure he must be losing money every season that passes now and he doesn't retire.

[Stony152]

Higher seeds now 37-4. I don't recall it being quite so lopsided in previous years, but I could be wrong.

[narl]

Looking at the frame scores, seems like Ursenbacher was in and scoring in a lot of the frames, 9 or 10 put of the 14, but broke down on 30 or 40. When I've seen him play before, its been kind of the same, and the reason he's lost so much. I know he's had a couple of decent results, but they're few and far between, and his age is less of an excuse than when he first came on the tour in his teens. I'd be inclined to say he doesn't have what it takes, but with so few young players coming through outside of China, maybe he has a chance if he can stay on the tour long enough.

Good to see Jimmy pushing forward after a close start to his session. If he was chalked to play anyone but Ali Carter in his second round I'd hold out a slim hope of a return to the Crucible. As it is though, looks like another year will go by, taking the tally to 13. Pretty sure he must be losing money every season that passes now and he doesn't retire.

Very much doubt he'll ever get back to the Crucible, in a playing role at least. Simply too much competition these days with younger players that pot him off the table. It's a rarity he gets to the televised stages of any tournament these days let along the World Championship. Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people think he's retired and just does exhibitions, since anytime he's on TV now it's doing Eurosport stuff. If not for seeing streams of qualifiers etc i think most of us would think he's more or less retired from Tournament play as well. The only TV tournament he does show up on with any regularity is that Snooker Shoot Out crap, which i'd not even classify as a proper Tournament.

These days he just makes up the numbers for the most part and his competitive days are easily a decade in the past

[jw147]

Looking at the frame scores, seems like Ursenbacher was in and scoring in a lot of the frames, 9 or 10 put of the 14, but broke down on 30 or 40. When I've seen him play before, its been kind of the same, and the reason he's lost so much. I know he's had a couple of decent results, but they're few and far between, and his age is less of an excuse than when he first came on the tour in his teens. I'd be inclined to say he doesn't have what it takes, but with so few young players coming through outside of China, maybe he has a chance if he can stay on the tour long enough.

Good to see Jimmy pushing forward after a close start to his session. If he was chalked to play anyone but Ali Carter in his second round I'd hold out a slim hope of a return to the Crucible. As it is though, looks like another year will go by, taking the tally to 13. Pretty sure he must be losing money every season that passes now and he doesn't retire.

Jimmy beat carter 6-2 in uk quals, capable of beating him again providing he finishes this match off tomoro and maybe gets a good start v carter. 3-1 lead at first interval and carter will get angry again and possibly lost plot.

[gavpowell]

These days he just makes up the numbers for the most part and his competitive days are easily a decade in the past

Yeah, even when he won the Players' Championship in 2004, it was a shock result and seemed to be the end of a final blaze of glory he started at the beginning of the same season.

[JimMalone]

Marco Fu defeated with 10 -7 by Lou Honghao that´s the first big surprise of the qualifiers so far. Great result for Honghao.

Is it that a big surprise? Luo has shown from time to time he can play very well, while Marco isn't the same since his eye surgery. I think that was of all the first rounders the one that screamed upset the most.

[JimMalone]

Reanne is obviously a very good snooker player, better than 99% of us will ever be, and probably the best female player ever, although Allison Fisher could lay claim to that. But you can't really expect the best woman currently to compete with the best men, it's statistically highly unlikely.

How many women play snooker? I've played in numerous snooker clubs, and I've literally never seen a woman playing. There must only be a handful of regular female players. Now think how many men play in order to produce the top 16 in the world.

It's highly probable that the women with the most natural talent and potential at snooker have never played the game, and never will play the game, not least due to a lack of interest (the same could apply to men, but far, far more men play the game, so the peak of performance is still higher).

The only way you're going to get competitive female players is if lots of women play the game, and the cream of those players rise to the top. By the same token, there are hardly any black snooker players, but there are loads of strong players from the Far East. That's not because Chinese people are genetically predisposed to be good at potting balls into holes, it's because loads of Chinese play the game, and few black people do so.

Whether women would quite get up to the level of the best men if many more were playing is more debatable, but we've seen in other competitive disciplines where lots of women play that the standard has escalated rapidly (see most women's sports - eg. tennis, football, cricket, etc).

The question will always be...would most women choose to be in a dingy snooker hall playing snooker? Even young lads are increasingly opting out of that choice.

You're right with the numbers definitely. There are far to few females that are into snooker.
It's probably less about talent though, much more important are hard and long work and the right mindset. Most top players start Snooker very early. I think girls starting with this sport early is even more rare in comparison then the gap between adults for both genders. Also if we just look at Reanne (who started at age 13 by the way): She has a daughter. So you can just guess how much time she missed on the training tables. You hardly can compensate this.

[jono*]

Disappointed to see Marco get knocked out by Luo Hong Hao. Would have like to see him play again at the big stage