On March 26, Beijing time, the Snooker Gibraltar Open broke out consecutive big cold! Defending champion Trump was in a slump, losing 4-0 to Richie Walton and missing out on the quarter-finals. In a game that ended a little later, Neil Robertson also lost 1-4 to Jack Jones and was eliminated. There is only 1 top 10 player left, and Ding Junhui has ushered in a good opportunity to win the championship.
The Gibraltar Open was played in a 7-game, 4-win format, so the contingency of the game was significant. Earlier, O'Sullivan suffered a round of travel, losing three consecutive sets with a 3-1 lead and being reversed. The wizard Higgins was also out early. Coming to the 16-in-8 match, Ding Junhui's play was still steady, blasting out three shots to break the hundred, and swept 4-0 to advance to the quarterfinals. But Trump and Robertson, two big seeded players, all overturned the ship.
Trump faced veteran Rich Walton and the whole game was very sluggish. In the first set, Trump lost 30-82, not expecting that the 30 points would be half of Trump's total score in this game. In the next two innings, Walton scored 83 and 71 consecutive points to win the match point 3-0. In the last set, Trump still did not find the form, 18-58 and then lost, 0-4 out of the game, missed three consecutive championships.
Robertson, the world's No. 4, also played badly, facing Jack Jones, Robertson lost 16-66 in the first set. In the second set, Robertson scored a single 73-point clean sheet against his opponent. In the third set, Jones honored Robertson with an 82-pointer. In the fourth set, the two fought each other, and Robertson scored 57 points alone to fail to exceed the score. As a result, Jones eventually killed 65-64. In the fifth set, Jones scored 129 points to end the game and win 4-1.
At present, only Karen Wilson is left in the top 10 players in the world ranking. And Ding Junhui's opponent in the next round is him. If Ding Junhui can beat Wilson, then he will have a good chance to go further and win the first championship of the season.