Gould & Allen knocked out, Robertson and Hendry advance: Day two at the Crucible
23 April 2012
After the second day of cue-crossing here in Sheffield, two top-seeded players saw their Crucible dream being crushed, Martin Gould losing by 10-8 to David Gilbert, while Mark Allen experienced the force of the Chinese Cao Yupeng under the form of a 10-6 final result.
Still the day proved to be a very good one for both Neil Robertson and Stephen Hendry, the two former world champions winning their matches by the same 10-4 scoreline.
The first surprise of this year’s World Championship comes from seeing qualifier David Gilbert in a brilliant form, one that Martin Gould didn’t know how to cope with.
With a first session ended by Gilbert on a 6-3 scoreline and the last one started by extending his lead, Derby’s player was in perfect control of the match.
But as the match developed, Gould started to show signs of coming back as his opponent was dangerously approaching the finish-line at 9-5.
Breaks of 136, 109 and 55 brought last year’s Power Snooker champion three consecutive frames and turned the scoreline into 9-8, but unfortunately they came a bit too late, Gilbert closing the deal with a 54 break for a place in the last-16 round.
The afternoon brought another upset, the Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen suffering a cruel defeat from the Crucible-debutant Cao Yupeng.
The Chinese player tried to set the “ground rules” from the beginning by cashing the first three frames of the match, with runs of 70 and 69, but as the first session was coming to an end, Allen managed to bring a bit of balance and be just one point behind his opponent, 5-4.
Returning into the arena for their final session, Cao flew at 7-4 with just a top break of 108, putting the 2012 Haikou World Open Champion in quite some trouble.
Allen managed to pull back a frame, but the Chinese player responded by taking the next two, the scoreline becoming now 9-5.
A 101 clearance from Allen was prolonging the suspense as the 16th frame was starting, frame that would prove to be a dramatic end of run the Northern Ireland’s player.
Cao missed the blue as he was reaching a 43 break, thus Allen returned to the table; it took him four visits to clear the table, for he needed the last ball to win this frame, but as the black was entering the pocket so was the cue ball. And so Cao Yupeng was winning the match by 10-6.
The last two matches of the day saw Neil Robertson winning 10-4 over legend Ken Doherty hitting break of 74, 41, 48, 106, 108, 100, 66 and 72 in the process; at the same time Stephen Hendry closing the match against Stuart Bingham, with the same scoreline and runs of 100, 89, 78, 147, 75, 65 and 96.
Ramona Dragomir
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