On March 26, the 2022 World Snooker Tour Gibraltar Open entered its third matchday, and today there will be an intensive schedule of four matches in one day, with the top 16 players until the final winner is decided. Ding Junhui won first and then lost, and in the fourth round against Jimmy Robertson, he felt good, blasted a 3-shot to break the hundred, and swept 4-0 to advance to the quarterfinals. However, in the quarter-finals, he lost 1-4 against his old rival Karen Wilson and missed the top 4.
The Gibraltar Open is the penultimate ranking tournament of the season, and due to its unique format, the entire tournament is played in three days, and all matches are short-term in a 7-game, 4-win format, which is a great test of fitness and condition for all players. In addition, as the Gibraltar Open is the final leg of this season's European series, involving the ultimate jackpot of £150,000, as many as 11 people have a chance to compete before the competition, so it attracts O'Sullivan to sign up for the first time.
Ding Junhui, who has suffered a decline in ranking this season, has fallen out of the world's top 16, so he has no desire and no desire to participate in the Turkish Masters and the Gibraltar Open in succession with the mentality of training instead of racing to warm up for the year-end World Championships. In this competition, Ding Junhui performed well in the first day of the competition, winning three consecutive games to advance to the round of 16. The other players of the Chinese legion performed poorly as a whole, and only Lu Haotian followed in his footsteps and became two Chinese players in the round of 16.
Today's first start of the fourth round of 16 into 8 battle, Ding Junhui faced the previous four wins of Jimmy Robertson, the result of Ding Junhui felt good, three shots in a row to break 100, the whole single score 59, 123, 133, 119 points, 4-0 sweep Robertson, advanced to the quarterfinals! And the opponent even scored only 2 points in the first three innings! In the quarter-finals, Ding Junhui's opponent was karen Wilson, who ranked fifth in the world, and the two met in the second round of the last Turkish Masters, when Ding Junhui won 5-3, ending the previous embarrassing losing streak against the world's top 16 seeds at the same time.
In this game, Wilson was in better shape, in the first set of the two-man battle, Wilson completed the super point, took the lead in the first opener, and took a 1-0 lead; in the second set, Ding Junhui got started, and there was a mistake in the situation of scoring 37 points with one shot, and Wilson completed the rebound with 79 points, leading 2-0 in two consecutive sets. In the third set, Ding Junhui scored 88 points to make it 1-2. In the fourth set, Ding Junhui failed to seize the back mobile phone meeting, and was overtaken by Wilson again to get a 3-1 match point opportunity. In the fifth set, Wilson scored twice to complete the super point, and finally won 4-1 to advance to the round of 4.
In other competitions, two-time champion and top seed Trump suffered a crushing defeat, losing four consecutive sets, and finally lost 0-4 to Walton, stopping in the round of 16. With Trump out, he also withdrew from the battle for the £150,000 prize in the European Series. In addition, Robertson, another big prize contender, was also in poor shape, losing 1-4 to Jack Jones, also stopping in the round of 16. In the top 8 lineup, only Walton has a chance to compete, and he must win the championship to surpass the current first place Higgins and win the big prize.