After losing to China's post-00s fan Zhengyi in the final of the European Masters, Snooker legend O'Sullivan directly said that snooker would one day be played like table tennis by Chinese. This may be exaggerated, but as the performance of Young Chinese snooker players improves, it is really possible that Chinese players will become the real top kings of snooker, as O'Sullivan predicted. After Fan Zhengyi won the European Masters championship, China's two famous players Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao have successively received good news. In the Welsh Open qualifiers, Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao both defeated their respective opponents to advance to the main tournament. However, the difference is that Zhao Xintong is easily promoted, while Yan Bingtao's promotion road is more arduous, relying on the kill to be promoted. Moreover, Yan Bingtao also caused great controversy in this game, and even the professional commentators of the game once thought that he had a festival with his opponent.
At the Welsh Open, Fan Zhengyi, who had just won the European Masters, did not have the opportunity to participate, because he had been eliminated in the previous qualifiers. However, China's three famous players Ding Junhui, Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao will all play. Ding Junhui has previously advanced to the main tournament, and this time Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao are in the qualifiers. Zhao Xintong's opponent is Audford Lanes, and there is still some gap between the opponent's strength and Zhao Xintong. Zhao Xintong entered the state relatively quickly and quickly won the first set. In the second set, he directly scored a single shot to break the hundred, 101 points, and the big score was 2:0. In the third set, Zhao Xintong scored a single 56 points, leading 3:0 and getting match points. However, in the fourth set, he was chased back by his opponent for one round. In the fifth set, Zhao Xintong once again played a single shot to break the hundred, 115 points, and the big score was 4:1 to easily advance.
Contrary to Zhao Xintong's easy promotion, the promotion road of another famous player, Yan Bingtao, is much more difficult. Yan Bingtao's opponent is Hugh Gil, a player who is not strong and ranks more than 80. In the first set, Yan Bingtao lost. In the second set, Yan Bingtao scored a single 81 points to chase back a set. In the third set, Yan Bingtao lost again. In the fourth set, Yan Bingtao equalized. In the fifth set, Yan Bingtao scored a single 68 points and won the match point. But in the sixth set, the opponent stubbornly tied the score. In the decider, Yan Bingtao was once on the verge of being eliminated, but fortunately the opponent made a mistake, allowing Yan Bingtao to score a single shot of 71 points and reverse the promotion.
This game is indeed a tough game, not only for the players, but also for the audience. The match started at 10 p.m., but it didn't end until 3 a.m., and it took five hours, you know, only 7 innings. There's no doubt that this is a marathon race. By the time the two sides reached the sixth inning, the performances of both sides began, and the story of the match began.
At that time, Yan Bingtao held the match point in his hand and led 3:2. Opponent Hugh Gill began to use the delaying grinding tactic, yes, grinding control. I don't know if Hugh Gill ever thought that Yan Bingtao had a nickname called the new generation of "Mo Wang" when he adopted this tactic. As soon as the opponent uses this tactic, naturally Yan Bingtao will not show weakness. In this way, the two sides came and went, and the sixth inning was played directly for more than an hour. The two sides have repeatedly appeared in the game of continuous sticking defense scenes, in a word is that no one will let anyone, anyway, it is grinding, to see who grinds well. In this game, Hugh Gill's average playing time was 34.5 seconds, and Yan Bingtao did not fall much, reaching 26.5 seconds. Such a scene made the professional commentator of a certain platform sigh with emotion, and spit out in 8 words: the disaster of professional snooker. And also think that between Yan Bingtao and Hugh Gill, there was no festival between the two people before, why did they have to torture their opponents so much?
To be honest, this kind of play really consumes the patience of the audience and does not do much good for the development of snooker. For Yan Bingtao, as the champion of the Masters, the first person after snooker 00, and the first-class master of the world's top 16, does it really have the need to compete with a player who ranks more than 80? What's more, in this game, Yan Bingtao also lost the game and was almost eliminated in the decider. No wonder some fans, after watching this game, said that Yan Bingtao played like this, and the pattern was a little small.