In the early morning of February 9, Beijing time, the 2022 Players Championship ended another 4 1/8 finals in Wolverhampton, England, and Chinese rising star Yan Bingtao dedicated a New Year game for Chinese fans: the whole firepower was fully fired to break the hundred, and finally grabbed the opponent to reach the top 8.
The Players Championship is a heavyweight ranking tournament with a prize money of up to £125,000 and aims to invite the top sixteen players in a single season, which is the second time that Yan Bingtao has qualified since 2020.
Although "China's first brother" Ding Junhui lost the qualification for the competition due to his sluggish state, it is gratifying that Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao were both invited.
Yan Bingtao is a rising star of today's post-zero generation, who finally justified his name after winning the 2021 Masters, and in the last ranking match, he and Zhao Xintong joined forces to create the German Masters final China derby and became famous in the Taiwanese world.
A showdown between Yan Bingtao and The No. 8 seed "Brother Potato" Gilbert. The two sides have met a total of 4 times before, and Xiao Tao has the upper hand to win the last 3 consecutive wins.
In this battle, Xiao Tao took the lead in the game, taking a 2-0 lead with 100 points and 80 points in a row, although Brother Tudou grabbed Yan Bingtao's mistake in the 3rd set to play a single 50+ to make 1-2, but in the subsequent game, Yan Bingtao hit a single shot of 66 points, 135 points, 123 points in three consecutive sets to rewrite the score to 5-1 to grab the match point.
Unexpectedly, in the following game, Brother Potato scored a single shot of 83 points and 75 points to save three consecutive match points, chasing the score to 4-5.
In the end, Yan Bingtao stopped the decline and grabbed his opponent to reach the top 8 with an aggregate score of 6-4, it is worth mentioning that Yan Bingtao will play against Master Huo in the next game, who eliminated Zhao Xintong 6-3 in the first round.