On February 23, the second round of the 2022 World Snooker Tour European Masters began, with Chinese team Xiao Guodong and Zhou Yuelong joining hands in the first stage of the competition. As a result, Xiao Guodong faced Jordan Brown, the dark horse champion of last year's Welsh Open, and suffered a fiasco, losing five consecutive sets 0-5. In the showdown with Scottish past championship champion Dortmund, Zhou Yuelong, in the opening 3-0 lead, 4-2 to take the lead to get the match point, was finally won by Dort for three consecutive sets to complete a big reversal, 4-5 regret out. Xiao Guodong and Zhou Yuelong both missed the round of 16.
In the first round of the main tournament, as many as 14 members of the Chinese legion played, and in the end, 8 of them successfully broke through and advanced to the top 32, with Yan Bingtao, Xiao Guodong, Zhou Yuelong, Liang Wenbo and others all listed. It is a little regrettable that Ding Junhui, the leader of the Chinese Legion, missed the registration and did not qualify for the competition because of mistakes, while Zhao Xintong, who is ranked seventh in the world, accidentally overturned in the qualifiers at the end of October last year, resulting in no chance to participate in the regular race.
In the first second round of the competition, Xiao Guodong and Zhou Yuelong played hand in hand. Xiao Guodong against Jordan Brown, the dark horse champion of last year's Welsh Open, the two are similar in world ranking and similar strength, so the comprehensive assessment should be a match-up match. But unexpectedly, the game process presented a one-sided situation, Xiao Guodong failed to shoot a 50+ in the whole game, while Jordan Brown only scored a single 51 points and a single shot 73 points, but finally won five consecutive sets, staged a 5-0 sweep.
Zhou Yuelong and Dort's duel, the two have played each other many times before, Zhou Yuelong is less than lose, at a disadvantage. However, in the second round of the showdown, Zhou Yuelong took the lead, playing a single 65 points in the first set, winning the first three consecutive sets and taking a 3-0 lead. After Dort pulled back two sets, Zhou Yuelong won another set and directly won a 4-2 match point opportunity. But unfortunately, Dort then withstood the pressure and scored 52 points, 57 points and 67 points in a row, winning three consecutive sets and completing a big reversal. In the last three sets, Zhou Yuelong had many opportunities to end the suspense of the game, but he could not seize the opportunity, which was a pity.