Mark Selby dodged a bullet in his defence of the his UK title as the unknown Egyptian number 1 caused a bit of a stir firing in two 50 plus breaks and also a break of 99 in the first 3 frames as he showed he definitely has ability way beyond his ranking! But the world champion and world number 1 took everything he could as finished off with 2 frame winning breaks to run out a 6-4 winner and he will now face Scott Donaldson in the last 64.
Ronnie O’Sullivan kept up his excellent form with a 6-3 win over young tour debutant Jackson Page, The rocket fired in two centuries on route to victory and will now face Cypriot number 1 Michael Georgiou who defeated Alfie Burden 6-5 for a place in the last 32.
Judd Trump powered to a 6-0 victory over an over-matched Matthew Bolton in just over an hour. Judd fired in a tournament high break of 137 on route to victory and will now face Chris Wakelin for a place in the last 32.
There was also wins for former UK champions John Higgins, Neil Robertson, and Shaun Murphy but there was one major casualty in the first round as former champion Ding Junhui was sent crashing out at the hands of Leo Fernandez. Fernandez who was touch and go to even compete at this year’s tournament due a chronic back problem pulled off the shock of the tournament by fighting back from 5-1 down to claim the most memorable victory of his career.
Former UK Champion and crowd favourite Jimmy White rolled back the years with a vintage performance against Ali Carter. The man known as the “Whirlwind” won a close frame before the interval then fired in break of 128 and 61 to record a memorable victory and in the process book a last 64 clash with his stablemate Kurt Maflin who earlier powered to a 6-1 victory over the in-form Swiss youngster Alexander Ursenbacher.
UK Championship odds available at Dafabet.