Stars battle for knockout places at SangSom Reds
Noppon Saengkham, 20 in a week's time, provided the host nation with a much-needed victory as he won his second of five group matches at the Bt6-million SangSom 6-red World Championship at Bangkok's Montien Riverside hotel yesterday.
Noppon is battling alongside big names such as one-time world champions Steve Davis, Ken Doherty and Mark Ebdon, previous 6-red champions Jimmy White and Mark Davis, and world No 1 Mark Selby, the defending champ.
Noppon, the 2009 world junior champion, stunned world No 10 and former UK champion Matthew Stevens with a 5-3 win.
The Thai, beaten 5-1 by Tom Ford on day one of the championship, bounced back with a 5-3 victory over the Wuxi Classic champion Ricky Walden late on Monday and continued his winning streak yesterday as Stevens came out second best in a tight contest.
Three other Thai players failed to improve their group standings. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh was beaten 5-4 by India’s Pankaj Advani, Panompai Powises went down 5-3 to Marco Fu of Hong Kong and Issara Kachaiwong suffered a 5-4 defeat at the hands of Rodney Goggins.
As play drew to a close on the first day of the group matches, Darren Morgan and Judd Trump had scored six-red maximum breaks of 75, taking the overall championship total to 21 since 2008.
That figure increased to 22 with Mark Davis adding his name, but a 5-3 defeat at the hands of world amateur champion Hossein Ayouri from Iran was his first group setback. Irishman Goggins, the 1999 world under-21 champion, remained unbeaten after three group matches on completing a 5-4 victory over Thailand’s Kachaiwong who lost the decider 34-12.
Today brings an end to the eight group matches with the top four players in each of them qualifying for the knock-out stages and last 32.
Monday’s matches (UK unless stated):
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh (THA) bt S Davis 5-1; R Goggins (IRL) bt B Hawkins 5-3; P Suwannawat (THA) bt B Judge (AUS); M Davis bt D Morgan 5-3; M Selby bt S Ruberg (ISR) 5-1; K Doherty (IRL) bt L Hang (China) 5-1; M Stevens bt M Campbell 5-3; D Poomjaeng (THA) bt A Lee (HK) 5-0; A Mehta (IND) bt T Tirapongpaiboon(THA) 5-4; M Gould bt Z Anda (CHN) 5-4; H Ayouri (IRAN) bt M Ibrahim (EGY) 5-1; L Walker bt M Fu (HK) 5-4; S Murphy bt B Numan (AUS) 5-0; S Mohammad (AFG) bt J White 5-3; P Powises (THA) bt G Dott 5-4; N Jennings bt M Khairy (EGY) 5-3; J Trump bt I Kachaiwong (THA) 5-l; M Williams bt P Ebdon 5-1; N Saengkham (THA) bt R Walden 5-3; S Bingham bt B Judge (AUS) 5-1; D Morgan bt S Maguire 5-3; T Ford bt K Wrobel (POL) 5-3;D Dale bt S Ruberg (ISL) 5-4.
Yesterday’s matches :
P Advani (IND) bt ThepchaiyaUn-Nooh (THA) 5-4; H Ayouri (IRAN) bt M Davis 5-3; M Fu (HK) bt P Powises (THA) 5-3; N Saengkham (THA) bt M Stevens 5-3; S Davis bt A Higginson 5-0; A Lee (HK) bt D Dale 5-3; R Goggins (IRL) bt I Kachaiwong (THA) 5-4; R Walden bt K Wrobel (POL) 5-0; M Williams bt A Mehta 5-4.
