Snooker: World Championships - One Comeback Too Many

Last night David rolled back the years to recover from 8-3 down to 8-8 against Bingham. At one point it looked like it was going to be another remarkable recovery along the lines of Houdini Hendry and Ebdon the Grinder, ...or at least another 10-9! It wasn't to be, Davis missed a mid range final black when at 8-8, left it over the pocket and Bingham took the frame to lead 9-8, he then took the next one to win the match 10-8. It was a great match though, a thriller along the lines of Ebdon vs Cope and Hendry vs Allen.

Among today's matches are Selby vs King and the long awaited Ding vs Fu.

I think Ding needs to win this match to get his snooker aspirations back on track, he was beaten soundly by Fu earlier in the season and hasn't won a tournament for quite some time. This is of course Ding's last attempt to become the youngest ever World Champion and beat Hendry's long standing record. I'm expecting a very good match here, and if Ding's the quality he's supposed to be, he'll have forgotten about Fu beating him and put things right with a win.

Selby vs King plays to a finish this morning, currently it's locked at 5 frames each. Remember King knocked out Jimmy White in the final qualifying round, but don't let that influence who you're supporting in this match! :o)

Snooker: World Championships - Houdini Hendry

What a match, what a match!

I was one of his doubters, I really didn't think he could do it, I thought he wasn't playing well enough, I didn't think his safety was good enough, I thought his long potting was all over the place, I thought he was missing too many balls, as Stephen said with his interview with Parrott straight after the match, ..."I still have big balls", well how would we know, but what a great match and how wrong I was!

As daft as this sounds, I think the first frame of the evening session won it for Hendry, he needed 2 snookers with just the colours left, and played an extremely risky blue to put it next the black that was over the corner pocket. Allen knocked in the black when going for the blue and it was 6-4 Allen. Hendry got the match back to 6-6 and the Allen pulled away again to take the match to 8-6. Hendry played some great snooker to take the match to 8-8 and made a magnificent break to take the decider.

Hendry's reaction to the camera said it all after the match, punching the air while staring straight into the lens. He said it was probably the best first round win of his career. Allen was understandably devastated, he said in his post match interview he thought he'd blown his top 16 place, I'm not too sure whether this is the case or not.

Now I think I'll go and get another gin and tonic and watch the exciting end to the Davis vs Bingham match, ...another thriller, 8-8 as I write.

Think I'll go and eat my hat too.