International Championship - Day 1

14-year-old Lu Haotian continues to impress after defeating
Michael White 6-5 in the Wildcard Round

China’s biggest snooker competition, the International Championship, kicked off on Sunday with the brand new event carrying the biggest prize money and ranking point tariff out of all of the Far East events.

Shaun Murphy was the first man to book his place in the second round with a dominant 6-0 whitewashing of Andrew Higginson. Neil Robertson also secured a spot in the Last 16 with a 6-3 victory over Ryan Day. The Aussie was almost unable to play in the tournament due to visa issues but ironed out the issues only a few hours before hand to allow him to compete. Day won the first two frames but Robertson hit back impressively to win five frames on the bounce to move within one of victory. The Welshman did pull one frame back but Robertson was victorious in the ninth to seal the win.

Meanwhile, there were a few casualties of the wildcard round with some of the established qualifiers losing out before reaching the first round. The first saw teenager Lu Haotian come back from 5-2 behind to defeat Michael White in a final frame decider. Welshman White was carrying an injury after spraining his ankle following a tennis match with a few fellow players but it was still a surprise as Lu won four on the bounce to claim progress to the last 16, with a bye after Ronnie O’Sullivan withdrew from the competition. Ken Doherty also suffered defeat to a wildcard entry as another teenager, Zhao Xintong beat him 6-5. Zhao was 5-2 ahead at one point although Doherty fought back to 5-5 but the 15-year-old kept his cool to book a last 32 tie with Matthew Stevens.

Cao Yupeng avoided embarrassment in his wildcard game against Wang Yuchen after fighting back from 4-1 down to win 6-5. Aditya Mehta also needed a deciding frame to win his wildcard match against Zhu Yinghui to book his place in a major ranking event main draw for the first time in his career. Also in the wildcard round, Fergal O’Brien defeated Chen Feilong 6-3 whilst Jamie Burnett thrashed Niu Zhuang 6-0.