Friday seemed a little quieter to start with but that may well have been down to the very late (or should that read early) finish caused by IPA Chairman Kevin Barton finishing his singles match early Friday morning.
The day unfolded slowly with Seniors, doubles, singles and a flyer all taking place one after the other and competing for table time in a room full of impatient pool players eager to rack up and break at the earliest opportunity. The doubles certainly brought plenty of entertainment with the format allowing for a black ball shoot out at 6-6 in a race to 7, which basically involves a re-spotted black plus a white ball behind the baulk lime and whoever’s nerve holds the better wins – great fun for the crowd, nerve racking for the players though!
As mentioned yesterday the big guns had rolled in to town but some were more water pistol than Colt 45 and went out at the earliest stage, but those strongly fancied were still there come the last 32 starting in the evening at 7.00pm and a knowledgeable if not quite sell out crowd soon assembled around the tables for the best of views.
As with any sport we did have a few “shocks” with Harry Irwin losing to Mark Chung (both good players mind) but generally speaking the cream rose to the top (plus any other cliché I can think of), with crowd favourites Simon Ward, Craig Marsh, and Gareth Potts all moving forward while an unkind draw left us all salivating at the prospect of Ben Davies versus Christophe Lambert on the live stream table. For those unfamiliar with the top names in our sport, they are both top players but almost chalk and cheese, though both with huge followings in their respective Countries (Wales and France). Confession time, Ben is one of my favourite players, flamboyant, almost casual in manner and with the sweetest cue action you can imagine but he can blow hot or cold, whereas Christophe is measured, clinical, meticulous even, but talented none the less so naturally, something had to give. Despite starting slowly in the first set (best of nine), going 2-0 behind, Christophe ran out a 5-2 winner tweaking up the pressure for a must win Set Two for his opponent, in what was turning in to one of the matches of the week so far. Sadly it was not to be for my selection who lost 5-2 5-1 overall in sets, and the Frenchman must now be one of the favourites to be crowned Champion on Sunday evening -we shall see soon enough!