Data map: The picture shows Mark Allen in the game.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yu Kun
China News Agency, Beijing, February 21st. On the morning of the 21st, Beijing time, the first day of the 2023 Snooker Players Championship ended. The biggest favorite to win the championship, Northern Ireland's "Small Steel Cannon" Mark Allen lost an upset and stopped the first round.
The Snooker Players Championship is a ranking tournament that only players who rank among the top 16 in the world in a single season can participate.
The first round, quarter-finals and semi-finals of this event all adopt the system of 6 wins in 11 rounds, and the final will win 10 out of 19 rounds, with a championship prize of 125,000 pounds.
There were two games on the first day, and the head-to-tail battle in the opening game attracted much attention.
Mark Allen is undoubtedly the biggest winner of this season.
After winning 3 ranking championships in the past 4 months, "Small Steel Cannon" is far ahead in the rankings this season and has become the biggest favorite to win the Players Championship.
This time against Joe O'Connor, who is ranked 16th this season, Mark Allen is expected to win easily.
But the situation on the field is surprising.
At the beginning of this campaign, the "Small Steel Cannon" was completely misfired, losing 3 games in a row.
In the 4th inning, Mark Allen pulled back 1 point, but was still behind all the time, and finally lost 3:6.
In another game that followed, No. 2 seed Ryan Day defeated Chris Wakelin, who was ranked 15th in the season, 6:2 as expected, becoming the second person after Joe O'Connor to advance to this season. Top 8 players in the tournament.
This season's Players Championship has not yet started, and it has been upset-the "75 Three Masters" (born in 1975) "Rocket" O'Sullivan, "Wizard" Higgins and "Golden Left Hand" Mark William, all ranked in the top 8 in the world James, as well as the world No. 4 and defending champion Neil Robertson were not shortlisted for the Players Championship due to their poor record this season.
Two Chinese players, Ding Junhui and Zhou Yuelong, qualified for the Players Championship as No. 6 and No. 14 respectively.
On the next match day, Zhou Yuelong will take the lead to challenge Karen Wilson, who is ranked third this season and is known as the "strongest post-90s generation".
On the third day of this championship (the evening of the 22nd Beijing time), Chinese billiard star Ding Junhui will face Gary Wilson, who is ranked 11th this season.
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