In the early morning of February 11, Beijing time, the second game of the 2022 Snooker Players Championship 1/4 final ended the battle, and Yan Bingtao, after 11 rounds of hard fighting, blasted out three shots to break the hundred, still losing 5-6 to Barry Hawkins, regrettably out. Hawkins was so fierce that he played almost perfectly!
Yan Bingtao is ranked 13th in the world in the latest place, and in 5 days he will usher in his 25th birthday. Therefore, Yan Bingtao is very eager to win the championship and send a big gift to his birthday. As a post-00, Yan Bingtao currently has a ranking champion (19 Years of the Richa Masters) and an invitational champion (21 years of the Masters). With two champions in hand, Yan Bingtao is the strongest post-00s who deserve it. In recent seasons, Yan Bingtao has remained in the top sixteen in the world, and has a very good performance in each season, although he has not won the championship again, but he has also reached the final several times, and he is a regular visitor to the top four and eight. He and Zhao Xintong, who have soared this season, are also known as "Chinese Twin Stars". In the 20-year Players Championship, Yan Bingtao has reached the final, although he lost to Trump and did not win the championship, but he could win the runner-up, which once again proved Yan Bingtao's own strength.
Hawkins is 11th in the latest world ranking. This year is 43 years old, Master Huo is nicknamed "Falcon", and has the title of The Top Four Professional Households. He has had seven championship trophies in his career, but the last time he won it was the Paul Hunt Classic (invitational) in 19 years, and it's been five years since he last won the ranking championship (17 years of world grand prix). Although the champion has been famine for more than 2 years, but the top four professionals are not wasted, these seasons, Hawkins can still maintain the world's top sixteen all year round, the reason is that he played too stable, repeatedly reached the ranking of the quarter-finals or even the final, rarely a round of travel. In this season's Masters, Hawkins also reached the final, but unfortunately it is one step away from the championship.
Yan Bingtao defeated David Gilbert 6-4 in the first round, and Hawkins took revenge on Zhao Xintong 6-3. The two have met 3 times before. Yan Bingtao has not tasted 0 wins and 3 losses, it can be said that Yan Bingtao's career so far is not much, Hawkins is definitely one of them.
Throughout the game, both played very well, there were few low-level mistakes, the standard of the game was very high, wonderful, and the intestines were full of guts.
In the first four sets of the first half, the two sides played a big game. In the first two sets, Yan Bingtao blasted out a single shot of 139 points and 103 points of two shots to break the 100 to take a 2-0 lead. However, in the third and fourth innings, Hawkins played a single 86 and 77 points to chase two consecutive innings and still color, and the two were tied 2-2 at halftime.
In the second half of the game, the two still killed difficult points, Hawkins single shot 85 points to win the fifth set 3-2 to achieve a rebound, Yan Bingtao was not in danger, showing a big heart, played a single 54 points and 98 points in a row of two cities 4-3 lead again, the key eighth inning, Yan Bingtao a serious mistake in a defensive shot, the red ball pile was completely broken, Hawkins accepted the gift to win 96-1. The two sides drew 4-4 in the first eight innings, and the match was very sticky and full of gas.
The key 9th game point game, Hawkins solved the ball wrong, Yan Bingtao took the lead, in the face of such a critical set, Yan Bingtao played very seriously, the concentration is extremely high. Full of the desire for victory, Yan Bingtao finally blasted out 132 points again to take the lead 5-4 to get the match point. The audience also gave warm applause.
In the tenth inning, both men fluctuated psychologically at the beginning, each making a mistake. Then Yan Bingtao scored a red ball from a super difficult far platform to surprise the whole field, but Yan Bingtao wanted to win too much, and could have made a high-quality snooker, but chose to attack, losing the black ball and burying a good game. After Hawkins started, he showed his super ability to shoot a 126-point shot to break the 100-one clearance, and the two sides drew 5-5 to enter the decider.
Tiebreaker of the eleventh round. Hawkins took the lead in achieving a mobile session through high-quality defense, and directly overscored with a single shot. In the end, the whole game ended, Yan Bingtao lost to Hawkins 5-6, and regretted being out.