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| Alan McManus remains in contention for a spot in the Grand Finals |
Click HERE for the provisional Asian Order of Merit after the Last 64.
Race to the Grand Finals
With Mark Selby already qualifying for the Grand Finals via the European Order of Merit, the ninth place player on the Asian Order of Merit will secure a place at the tournament in Preston at the end of the month.
That place is currently filled by Alan McManus following a 4-2 win over Michael Leslie and a 4-1 win over Paul Davison, meaning he’s currently in a strong position to make it to the finals. However, to make that a certainty, he needs to progress further in the event but faces a tough task as he faces the combative Kurt Maflin in the last 32 on Friday.
McManus’ success has caused Liu Chuang, who chose not to enter this event, to lose his place in the Players Championship Finals.
Michael Holt, who currently occupies sixth place in the rankings, was defeated in the opening round but he still looks fairly certain to progress to the finals. Meanwhile, both Lyu Haotian, ranked fourth and Scott Donaldson, ranked seventh, have made it through to the last 32 and also look fairly certain to make it to the finals.
Professional players who remain in the hunt to capture a spot at the finals with a strong performance thus week, include Tian Pengfei, who must reach the semi-finals. He’ll have his work cut out in trying to achieve this, as he faces event three winner Ju Reti in the next round, with Jack Lisowski and Stuart Bingham also in his quarter.
Yu Delu and Ben Woollaston must also reach at least the semis to remain in contention for a top nine spot but only one of them can get there as they face each other in a crucial last 32 match on Friday. There’s a tough route to the semis for the winner, with Ken Doherty, Tom Ford, Alan McManus and Kurt Maflin all in their quarter.
Anthony McGill’s hopes of capturing a late spot in the finals were scuppered earlier this week when Maflin fought back from 3-0 down to win 4-3 in the opening round, and the young Scot cannot now qualify. Neither can fellow Scot Graeme Dott who was beaten by Li Hang in the second round on Thursday.
Race for the Tour Cards
With Ju Reti already assured of a tour card next season, Liu Chuang, Lu Chenwei and Zhou Yuelong all occupy the other two-year tour card places on the Asian Order of Merit. With Yuelong already qualifying for the tour via his victory in the World Amateur Championship back in December, the next name on the list will probably be given a two-year card instead.
There’s currently a three man battle for that for that spot, with Rouzi Maimaiti, Chen Zifan and current professional Tian Pengfei, currently 66 on the money list and therefore not currently keeping his tour place, all vying for it.
All three remain in the tournament so it’ll be last man standing as for who snatches that place but with Chenwei already knocked out, if two or three of these players progress to the last 16 then they will move into the tour card positions.
Maimaiti, who’s currently on 3,100 points and in a leading position to take a card, has a very winnable match next as he takes on fellow amateur Cai Jianzhong.
Zifan, on 2,900 points also faces a winnable match against another amateur Sun Peng.
As mentioned previously, Pengfei, also on 2,900 points, has the toughest of matches out of the three as he plays event two winner Ju Reti.
Winners of the last 32 matches will gain an additional 400 point to their respective tallies.
It’ll certainly be an interesting day with many twists and turns ahead in Dongguan and we’ll have to see what happens as the last 32, last 16 and quarter-finals are all played out.
You can follow the live scores here via the World Snooker scoring system whilst live streaming of three of the venue’s tables are available here at the My147 website.
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