Kyren Wilson still very much in it. Plus outside chances for the likes of Rob Milkins and Ryan Day.

Ding Junhui back in it with a 136 total clearance on his first real scoring chance. Going to get interesting...

Ding in all sorts of trouble and needing three snookers to avoid going 4-1 down. Normally I don't think he'd play on but he knows he's in trouble...

Cheers Zaw, great stuff

One point though. You say Milkins would have to see how Maguire and Wilson do and he needs to win it. But if he does win it then White drops down from 15 too so therefore two places up for grabs

Ding Junhui is indeed out of the China Open and may now have to play qualifiers at Ponds Forge! Never would have guessed that this time two years ago when he won his fifth title of the season

Great chance though for several players to get into the top 16! Many players could still potentially get in if they win the event.

If I am being honest, I would say Ding will be seeded 16. The pressure on the likes of Maguire, Wilson and Milkins is pretty great and they have to perform better now than they have all season. Confident Ding will be at Sheffield as a seed

So Ding is out 5-1 then, he put a cracking blue in and then the pressure of the pink told..

So a top 16 place (or possibly two as Darren pointed out if two of them got to the final and overtook Ding and Michael White) now up for grabs.

Ding will now become a Jack Lisowski fan I suspect (Jack faces Maguire in the last 32)

Ryan Day's last 64 match against Dechawat Poomjaeng should also be intriguing. If he wins, he gets Ricky Walden.

Kyren Wilson has Tom Ford in his last 64 match, with then potentially Rod Lawler or Peter Lines (ironically he could have faced Ding in a potential top 16 shootout)

Robert Milkins has a last 32 match aginst Marco Fu or Yu De Lu.

Some matches to be watched there...

Here is a Tweet that shows just how many players could potentially still get into the top 16!

https://twitter.com/ProSnookerBlog/s...55081077370880

Talking about the oldest players on the tour - Nigel Bond & Tony Drago are both 50.

So Ryan Day has won, as has Kyren Wilson. Ryan goes above Robert Milkins provisionally with that win (both now at same round stage)

Also effectively Kyren is now above Stephen Maguire in the provisional rankings, and at the same round stage (both have £6500 for winning their last 64 game.)

In fact, all eight players ranked 18 through to 25 have got to the last 32 - it's gonna be good..

Let's hope Kyren Wilson can get to the quarters which if I am following it correctly means he will get in the top 16.

About time a young player broke into the top 16 as the 30 and 40 something feel to the top 16 the last few years has not been good for the game at all

Sorry the semis I forget the guaranteed prize money was added already

Not that straight forward as he needs those above him to do worse.

The only players above Kyren are already out Darren (M. White, D. Junhui & L. Wenbo). He was ahead of Maguire pre tournament too so he doesn't need to depend on other results.

Ah yes, my bad. I hadn't noticed that Maguire's money included his last 64 win already. Still think it will be Ding though.

15 year old dumps out Gould 5-0

547 points without reply was a record by Bingham in ranking events today including three centuries on the spin, and only 9 points short of the Rocket's 2014 Masters record.

Incredible. Yuan SiJun lost 6-4 to Jimmy White in the International Championship when he was just 13! Amazing how so many of these Chinese kids are so good at such an early age!


Good time of the season to come into some form of course. Could actually play Kyren Wilson in the Last 16... that would be interesting!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rnJdn9zqYQw

Given the context, possibly the greatest ever example of sportsmanship in snooker. Hendry actually went on to lose this frame.

Maguire defeats Lisowski & moves potentially two wins away from the crucible but Day is out. Kyren well behind, 1-4 to Lawler, looks like Ponds Forge for the Shanghai Masters champ...

Edit: indeed, Wilson is ousted by five frames to one.

I'd wager Ding is heading for Ponds Forge now. Selby's withdrawal and Perry's whitewash have really opened the top section of the draw up. Maguire *only* has to beat Dom Dale or Darryl Hill, then Mike Dunn, Rory McLeod or Alfie Burden to make the Crucible. He'd start heavy odds on for both those matches whoever he plays.

Yep, you could well be right. Lady luck has certainly started shining on Stephen Maguire.

Sad thing is it would mean that, if Ding does have to qualify, that the WORLD Championship will only have two guaranteed non British players in it. I know this has happened before ( many times ) but then the seeds 17-32 only had one game to win. It's Rory now too, he beat Mike Dunn.

Looks like we can take the Milkman out of the equation, 4-0 down to Marco at the MSI...

Why do seeds 17-32 have to win 3 qualifiers to get to Sheffield now

Been that way since last year, with a view to making the qualifying the same as other tournaments, where it's as flat a draw as possible. It was a Barry Hearn announcement mid way through the 2014-15 season I think, so effectively it's 17-144 that are in flat 128, so from that it goes down to 16 at the end.

Only the top 16 qualify as of right, but that's actually made more players actually try and get further in a lot of tournaments (especially at the moment) making them more competitive.

Might be as good a time as ever to mention I've updated my World Snooker Championship FAQ for 2016:

http://www.zawtowers.org.uk/Writing/...nookerfaq.html

There's a PDF on the page as well for download - but I shall update regularly when it gets closer...

To make it more like the flat draw of other tournaments essentially and increase the entrants to 144. The first round has 16 matches thus whittling the field down to 128. That's when the above seeds come in. It then goes down to last 64, 32 and 16 qualifiers who go through to the Crucible. It was first introduced last year.

Milkins definitely out then as is Holt, so they are both going to have to qualify for the Worlds.

Dave Gilbert is still going though, through to the last 16 now to keep his hopes alive. However he has to play John Highins next, who of course beat him in the International Championship final earlier in the season.