Wednesday 25 April 2007

Snooker: Selby, Robertson and Hendry Through!

Neil Robertson, Mark Selby and Stephen Hendry are through to the last 16.

The snooker tables seem to be taking more of a headline than the snooker players at the moment. The bounces of the cushions are ridiculous at times and are beginning to make the players look like they've played poor shots. That isn't always the case of course and the tables need to be looked at as soon as possible by the table fitters.

Robertson played well to beat Day who's a great talent and it was always going to be a difficult first round match for both players. Robertson will now play Ronnie in the next round and that one should be the last 16 match to look out for. He's beaten Ronnie twice this season already so look for Ronnie to get some revenge!

I didn't see any of the Hendry match but I've heard through the commentators on the BBC that Hendry struggled to beat newcomer David Gilbert by 10 frames to 7. Hendry said the cushions were a real problem as well.

Hendry is using a new cue, so maybe he's struggling with it a little under tournament conditions. When looking at his action with his previous cue, it almost looked as if it was a little too heavy and that he was trying to force the cue through the cue ball. I haven't seen him playing with his new cue yet. I don't think he's been the same player since his original Riley cue was stolen many years ago. He certainly hasn't had the same amount of success with his recent cues but that could be attributed to many different factors.

The victory of the day has to be Mark Selby who beat Stephen Lee by 10 frames to 7 after been 5-0 down! I heard the BBC presenter say that currently Lee's wife is not too well so Lee isn't practising as much as he needs to. Nevertheless, I think Selby is a great player and it's a great win for him. He's been over to Switzerland and played in the Swiss Open a couple of times and he's always performed reasonably well. It's about time one of my predictions made it through to the next round!

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