Chinese rising stars influenced by O'Sullivan? Zhao Xintong blasted a single pole 136 points! Still 3-5 behind Maguire. In the second round of the 2022 World Snooker Championships, Chinese rising star Zhao Xintong played against Scotland's Maguire. In the first round of the game, Zhao Xintong beat Jack Clark 10-2, and Maguire eliminated the 10th seed Murphy, which shows that Zhao Xintong and Maguire are in good shape now, and the two are destined to be a fierce game.
The second round will be played in 25 rounds with a 13-win format, which will be divided into three stages, with only 8 sets played in the first stage. Zhao Xintong is currently ranked 6th in the world, and is now the only Chinese player in the top ten in the world ranking, this season Zhao Xintong's performance is obvious to everyone, has won the British Championship and the German Masters two large ranking championships, for the first time in his career as a seeded player to win the World Championship seat, "Rocket" O'Sullivan is even more praised by Zhao Xintong, and also said that Zhao Xintong is talented and has the opportunity to win the World Championship championship. Judging from the previous game, Zhao Xintong is indeed very strong at the offensive end, as long as the opponent makes a mistake, Zhao Xintong has a great chance of completing a victory, but the defense is always Zhao Xintong's shortcomings, if you can't complete a win, then the opponent has the opportunity to counterattack.
Although Maguire is now only ranked 40th in the world, his strength is not comparable to that of ordinary qualifiers, and before this match, Zhao Xintong and Maguire had a confrontation, when Maguire won 6-2. In this game, Zhao Xintong took the lead in entering the state, winning a set with a single shot of 72 points, in the second set, Maguire blasted out a single shot of 102 points and also with color, the third set, the two began to fight, Maguire with multiple starts, won another set at 58-15, the total score was 2-1. In the fourth set, Zhao Xintong scored a single 86 points, and the two fought to a 2-2 draw into the intermission. After the game restarted, Zhao Xintong blasted out a single 136 points to win the fifth set, leading 3-2 on aggregate, but then the game suddenly changed, Maguire played a single shot of 65 points, 107 points, 80 points to win 3 consecutive sets, thus ending the first stage of the game with a 5-3 lead on aggregate. This article is original by Xiao Lizi, please do not copy or port.
From the perspective of the game, Zhao Xintong and Maguire have the ability to win, but Zhao Xintong's performance on the defensive end is not as good as Maguire, and Zhao Xintong's game state is still a bit arbitrary, I don't know if it is affected by O'Sullivan's crazy praise, fortunately, in the 25-game 13-win game, 3-5 behind is not a particularly big disadvantage, I hope Zhao Xintong can continue to cheer in the second stage of the game.