The Global Snooker Centre

The Open Tour 2002-3

Event Two News - February, Leicester

Final: RYAN DAY (£700) (53,55,66) 5-3 (53) Mark Gray (£400)

Semi Finals: (£200)

Mark Gray (66) 4-2 Antony Bolsover

Ryan Day (76,87,72,71) 4-1 Shailesh Jogia

Quarter Finals: (£150)

Mark Gray (60,139) 4-0 Justin Astley,

Antony Bolsover (50,64,50,50) 4-2 Jamie Cope (108)

Shailesh Jogia (50,57) 4-1 David Donovan

Ryan Day (53) 4-0 Ding Jung Hui

Last 16 (£125)

Mark Gray (59,55,58) 4-1Lewis Roberts

Justin Astley (87,123,83,57) 4-3 Mark Joyce (77,59)

Antony Bolsover (57) 4-1 Mark Sutton

Jamie Cope (52,108,50) 4-1 Ben Woollaston, David Donovan (71,68,58) 4-1 Jeff Cundy (61)

Shailesh Jogia (76) 4-1 Peter Lines, Ryan Day (74,110) 4-0 (61) Paul Davies,

Ding Jung Hui 4-1 Gary Thomson

Last 32 (£75)

M Gray (54,62) 4-3 (88,51) Munraj Pal, L Roberts (56) 4-1 Jamie Bodle,

M Joyce (69) 4-3 (55) Stephen Ormerod, J Astley (56,115,112) 4-1 Itaros Santos,

A Bolsover 4-0 David Dalton, M Sutton (111) 4-2 Ben Hancorn, J Cope (54,60) 4-0 Adam Wicheard,

B Woollaston (61,70,110) 4-2 (81,67) Sunit Vaswani, J Cundy 4-2 Aaron Roberts, D Donovan (82) 4-2 Andy Lee, P Lines (70) 4-3 Simon Dent, S Jogia (56,70,53,50) 4-2 Chris Norbury.

HIGH BREAKS

147 Gary Thomson (£75)

144 Shailesh Jogia (£50)

139 Mark Gray (£35)

Ryan Day maintained his unbeaten record in the Open Tour, winning his second consecutive final, this time against Mark Gray and the pair head the Open Tour ranking list after two events, followed by Shailesh Jogia, Gary Thomson, James Reynolds, Peter Lines Antony Bolsover, Mark Joyce.

Highlight of the week undoubtedly belonged to Scotland's Gary Thomson who compiled a 147 during his final qualifying match against Ian Gadd. While the senior pros were trying to win an £88,000 car at Wembley, Thomson had to content himself with a £75 high break prize. During his 4-1 win over Gadd Thomson plundered breaks of 147, 84, 50, 48 and 88.

Considerable interest centred round the first appearance on British soil of Chinese teenage sensation Ding Jun Hui and he qualified for the final stages with useful wins over Darren Sparks, who he trailed 3-1 before winning 4-3, and he also beat Luke Fisher 4-3. In the last 32 another Main Tour pro Dave Gilbert, led Ding 2-0 with breaks of 113 and 51, but Ding retailed to lead 3-2. Gilbert levelled with a run of 95 but Ding stepped up to take the match with a superb break of 90. He went on to beat maximum man Gary Thomson 4-1 in the last 16 before bowing out to the invincible Ryan Day in the quarters.

Brazilian Itaros Santos, still only 16, now based in the UK continued his improvement as he reached the last 32 with wins over Barry Stark and Kuldesh Johal.