China snooker ace Ding advances on birthday
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Home favourite Ding Junhui celebrated his 23rd birthday with a win over Mark Selby in the second round at the 2010 World Snooker China Open on Thursday.
The UK championships title holder had a dreamingly start by opening with 126 and 56 to lead 2-0, then Selby rattled in 101 and 116 to level. Ding regained the lead at 4-2 with run of 101 and good safety after the interval. However, Ding made a mistake when putting a blue ball in frame seven and that forced the match go into the eighth frame. Ding then wrapped up the final one to seal the victory.
"The match was competitive, I think clearly during the match," said the 23-year-old Chinese ace,"now I still have match to play, so there will not be a birthday party tonight." Ding will face defending champion Peter Ebdon in the quarter-finals. Ebdon defeated Neil Robertson 5-1, though the Australian cueman made the first maximum break of his career in frame two.
World No. 4 John Higgins' dream of reaching at least the semi-finals of six consecutive ranking events was brought to an end as he fell 5-2 to Mark Williams. Breaks of 73 and 81 put Williams 2-0 up, then Higgins made 67 and 93 in getting to within a frame at 3-2. Williams regained the momentum with a 108 and sealed victory in the next.
Stephen Hendry produced his best performance of the season in whitewashing Ryan Day 5-0.
Earlier in the afternoon session, World No. 2 Stephen Maguire of Scotland was knocked out by Mark Allen. Chinese wildcard cueman Tian Pengfei, who surprisingly stunned Ronnie O'Sullivan last night, didn't manage to go further as he was beaten by Mark King from England 5-3.
Another home favourite Marco Fu from Hong Kong of China came from a 3-0 down to outplay Nigel Bond 5-3. Fu admitted the champion of the Champion League he gained last week boosted his confidence.
Ali Carter beat Joe Perry 5-3 thanks to runs of 79 and 70 in the last two frames.
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