Chinese debutant Lyu wallops veteran Fu
LONDON: China’s Lyu Haotian made light of his being the lowest ranked player in the snooker world championships with a memorable 10-5 defeat of two-time semifinalist Marco Fu on his debut.
The 20-year-old — ranked 68th in the world — didn’t waver after opening up a 6-3 advantage and never allowed experienced Hong Kong cueman Fu back into the match yesterday.
Lyu’s victory ensures there will be two Chinese players in the second round — 2016 finalist Ding Junhui opened his campaign later yesterday against compatriot Xiao Guodong.
Lyu will play t he winner of t he clash between Barry Hawkins and Stuart Carrington.
“I’m happy to have been able to perform well. I was expecting to be nervous on my debut, but it turned out to be very enjoyable,” said Lyu via an interpreter.
“I know Marco was not feeling well about his eyes so maybe that affected his performance and contributed to the result,” added Lyu, who is based in Sheffield, home to the championships historic venue the Crucible Theatre.
Fu — a semi-finalist at the championships in 2006 and 2016 — refused to lay the blame for his under-par performance on having missed three months due to undergoing laser eye surgery. “My eyes are good, it didn’t really affect my game,” said the 40-year-old Fu. “Lyu was superb and potted a lot of long balls.
“I just lost to a better player, simple as that. I’ve got a few months off now so I’ll probably take a rest and have a few checkups.”
Crowd favourite and five-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan’s second round opponent will be Ali Carter who produced a superb comeback to beat 2006 world champion Grame Dott 10-8.