On February 9, the 2022 World Snooker Tour Players Championship began the last two matches of the first round, Scotland's "wizard" Higgins against Iran's brother Hussein Wafi, the result of which he staged a counterattack in the case of 0-2 behind, the whole game was bursting with feel, full of firepower, blasting out 4 shots to break the hundred, and finally defeated Wafi 6-3 and became the last player to qualify. At this point, all the top 8 players in this year's championship were born, the first two seeds of the tournament, Zhao Xintong and Brechel, were out, and the Chinese team was left with Yan Bingtao alone, and will compete with Hawkins for a top 4 spot.
As a high-threshold ranking tournament that only the top 16 players in a single season are eligible to participate in, the attractive £125,000 championship prize money of the Players Championship has naturally become a welfare event expected by many professional players, but in the end it still needs to combine the excellent performance in the first half of the season to qualify for the competition, even if it is the world's first Selby, because it is only ranked 18th in a single season, and finally regrettably absent. In the Chinese legion, Zhao Xintong locked in the first place in a single season with the entry of the two major ranking tournaments of the British Championship and the German Masters, but unfortunately, he lost 3-6 in the showdown with Hawkins yesterday and failed to meet Yan Bingtao again, who defeated Gilbert 6-4 to advance to the quarterfinals.
And one of the favorites to win the championship, O'Sullivan and Trump launched another "Special Olympics", which can be described as wonderful as Mars hitting the earth, and finally O'Sulli diploma won 6-3 with more stable offensive efficiency, ending the embarrassing losing streak against Little. The second seed, Belgian star Brechel, in addition to the first set to play a single 88 points, and then lost six consecutive sets, was carried away by a wave, and lost 1-6. Walton, who has recently played well, continues to perform magically, facing the "little steel cannon" Mark Allen, he won 6-2 and continued to qualify.
Higgins is facing Iran's govei, to say that this season both are quite the protagonists of the story, Higgins has reached the final of major events four times before, the result of four consecutive Asian, in the Champions League winners group a few days ago, finally broke the spell and won the championship. Waffy, on the other hand, rose to fame by sweeping O'Sullivan 5-0 in this season's German Masters qualifiers, while in the recent single-time limited time match, Waffy won seven consecutive games to win the first ranking tournament of his career.
In this game, the duel between the two also had a twist and turn, Wafi opened 2-0, Higgins equalized strongly, and in the fifth set Higgins played a hundred, a single 134 points, Wafi equalized again, but then Higgins played two consecutive shots to break the hundred, a single 101 points and a single shot 108 points, taking the lead in winning the match point. In the ninth set, Higgins played twice, ending Waffy's idea of counterattacking, and won 6-3 in a big score to advance smoothly.
At this point, the top 8 squads of this year's Players Championship were all born, and the first half of the game was against Hawkins vs. Yan Bingtao, Walton vs Williams, and the bottom half against O'Sullivan vs Robertson, Higgins vs. Jimmy Robertson. Yan Bingtao's match will start at 9 p.m. Beijing time on February 10, so stay tuned.