Snooker:Ken Doherty and Mark Allen both booked their places in the quarter-finals of the Australian Goldfields Open in Bendigo where home favourite and 2010 world champion Neil Robertson crashed out.
Doherty punished Liang Wenbo for his World Cup sartorial blunder with a 5-4 win today. The 41-year-old angrily insisted Liang should have been docked the frame for forgetting his bow-tie during his clash with Doherty’s Republic of Ireland team-mate Fergal O’Brien in Bangkok.
Doherty’s mood would hardly have been improved by Liang surging into a 4-1 lead, aided by breaks of 63 and 65, but he stopped the rot with a 47 and took two scrappy frames to level the match.
The 1997 world champion then took the decider with runs of 48 and 32 and will face Mark Selby, who scrapped for a 5-3 win over Mark Davis. Selby made breaks of 65 and 73 to lead 2-1 but found little fluency after the mid-session interval and had to scramble over the line.
The prospect of another grudge match is on the horizon after Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen set up a quarter-final clash with Stuart Bingham, who defeated Tom Ford 5-0.
The Antrim cueman made smooth progress into the last eight with a 5-1 win over Scotland’s Marcus Campbell.
And, though he took the time to commiserate with Campbell over “the worst run of luck I’ve seen someone have against me”, he was not in such sporting mood as he looked ahead to his next match.
“There’s a bit of history between us. We don’t get on,” Allen said of Bingham. “He said about getting revenge on Ding (Junhui) for his Crucible defeat but it would be nice to send him back where he belongs.
“He doesn’t like me because I told the truth in a press conference that he has no bottle - and as he threw away a match at the World Championships after leading 12-9 I think that showed it.
“It was great he did because that let the legend that is Stephen Hendry stay in the top 16 and I would rather see Hendry in the top 16 than Bingham.”
Bingham wasn’t for taking this sort of assessment lying down as the verbal spat between the pair intensified.
“I can’t wait to play this match,” admitted Bingham. “He (Allen) said a few words after the UK Championship which were a bit out of order and I’ve been waiting for this match for a while.
“He said I’ve got no bottle and he thought he was never going to lose to me. I will definitely be up for it. It will give me more pleasure to beat him.”
Robertson lost a close encounter against Wales’ Dominic Dale. A battle lasting close to four hours was decided on the final black as Dale set up a quarter-final against compatriot Mark Williams.
Dale led 3-1 before Robertson cut the gap with a 111, his second century of the match. The Australian was looking much the more fluent player and knocked in breaks of 59 and 54 to set up a decider.
He was first in with 48 but the 54-minute frame swung to and fro before Dale potted the final pink and black to win by a single point.
Williams booked his place in the quarter-finals with a comfortable win over David Gilbert. Williams, who posted what he called an “awful, appalling” 5-2 win over Barry Pinches yesterday, triumphed by the same score-line against Englishman Gilbert today but was much happier with his overall performance.
“It was a lot better today and I knew if I played like I did yesterday then I was going to get beaten,” said the world number one, who enjoyed breaks of 78 and 83 in a strong potting display.