UK Championships

It's a good story and has all the makings of him falling short at the last gasp to someone really lousy.

Maguire, Lisowski, Bingham, Jak Jones and Jackson Page all safetly through to Judgement Day.

In round 2, Jimmy White was 5-1 down to Ross Muir, but won 3 frames in a row to close to 5-4 before Muir put him out. Muir's opponent in round 3 is Robert Milkins. Wins also for Anton Kowalski and Oliver Lines. Kowalski's next opponent is Ricky Walden. Lines will be Neil Robertson's round 3 opponent.

It's Judgement Day for Zhao Xintong!! Noppon went 2-0 up only for Zhao to win the next 6 frames and beat him 6-2. No 147s, but Zhao did make a 127 break. For Judgement Day, Zhao's got that lousy player Ricky Walden.

Bai Yulu's match in the morning got pulled off for over-running it's alloted time. Scott Donaldson is 5-3 up and they are waiting for a free table to be available from the evening session to resume. Even if Bai can somehow win the last 3 frames, her Judgement Day opponent will be Jack Lisowski.

Tom Ford and Thepchaiya won't be involved in Judgement day, as they both lost. Ford did get to 5-5 with Lei Peifan, before Peifan made a 107 break in the decider.

I'm too old to be onboard with "Judgement Day" hyperbole, just as "Moving Day" during the Home Nations sets my teeth on edge.

Bai Yulu has done it.
She reeled off the last three frames aided by a series of 50 plus breaks to beat Scott Donaldson 6-5. The more I see of her the more impressed I am. She is a quality break builder.

Great stuff.

You're never too old for hyperbole. I'm a sexagenerian and I still get off on it.

Fantastic stuff from Bai! Deciding frame victories also for Neil Robertson, Xu Si and He Guoqiang (against McGill). A more comfortable 6-3 victory for Milkins.

Judgement Day Lineup:
Today
Jak Jones [17] v Fan Zhengyi [48]
Elliot Slessor [32] v Stephen Maguire [33]
Jimmy Robertson [40]v Stuart Bingham [25]
Jackson Page [41] v Hossein Vafaei [24]
Jack Lisowski [21] v Bai Yulu (f) [117]
Ryan Day [28] v Sanderson Lam [60]
David Lilley [61] v Wu Yize [29]
Wang Yuchen [109] v Barry Hawkins [20]
Thursday
Lei Peifan [83] v Ben Woollaston [46]
Zhou Yuelong [30] v Matthew Selt [35]
Ricky Walden [38] v Zhao Xintong (amateur)
Julien Leclercq [107] v David Gilbert [22]
Robert Milkins [23] v Xu Si [42]
Stan Moody [71] v He Guoqiang [58]
Liu Hongyu [63] v Michael Holt [95]
Matthew Stevens [50] v Neil Robertson [18]

Come on Bai and Big Bob Milkins.
Rooting for em.

I see Julien Leclercq and Wang Yuchen are also outside the top 100, so deserve credit for making it to this stage. It would be an awful anti-climax if they all got beat, Bai and Zhao too.

Maguire 6 Slessor5! Maguire went 4-2 ahead with the help of a 134 break, but Slessor hit back and won the next 3 frames. Maguire forced a decider with a 71 break. A tense decider, which developed into a long, drawn tactical battle that lasted nearly an hour, went down to the colours. Slessor made a safety error and Maguire cleared from green to pink to claim frame and match.

Jak Jones made 2 century breaks in defeating Fan Zhengyi 6-3. Also comfortable wins for Jackson Page and Stuart Bingham.

There was only Spanish commentary available on Discovery Plus for the Bai/Lisowski match so I had a laugh watching it in Spanish. The beautiful Desislava Bozhilova was a welcome sight as referee. It was a comfortable 6-1 win to Lisowski in the end but it could have been closer if Bai hadn't have missed a pressure blue in the 2nd frame to level the score. In the 5th frame, Bai did make a 59 break to reduce her arrears to 4-1, but in general the in-form Lisowski was just too sharp and fluent for her to contain. It's been a good run from Bai and she got further into a major WST event than any other woman has before. She looks head and shoulders above any other female player, and if she keeps up the standard she'll even make the male players shake in their boots at the prospect of having to play her.

Comfortable Victories for Ryan Day and Wu Yize. Wang Yuchen made it interesting when he came back from 3-1 down to level at 3-3, but Hawkins ruined everything by taking the next frames to win 6-3.