England’s Ricky Walden cruises past Matthew Stevens in Round 1 of 2011-12 PTC Grand Finals
After putting up a tremendous snooker show at the Bailey Allen Hall arena in Galway, England’s Ricky Walden breezed past Wales’ Matthew Stevens by a stunning whitewash score line of 4-0 in the opening round of the 2011-12 Players Tour Championship (PTC)
Grand Finals. The Englishman showed his class in his opening match with some cracking breaks to book the Last-16 spot.
The Stamina Man proved his break building capability firing two marvellous century knocks to compile 423 points with no response from the Welshman. Stevens was not given a single opportunity to hit any frame victory and unnerve the Englishman. Walden was
impressive at the baize and stormed past Stevens with four consecutive set wins.
The Welshman was leading the opening frame with noticeable points but he missed on red to allow Walden at the baize who took a real advantage of the opportunity and swept the table with a classy clearance of 66. After that, the Chester cueman pocketed three
massive breaks of 130, 95 and 131 to move within four frames victory over the Welshman.
Speaking to World Snooker in his post match interview, Walden said, “Winning the first frame settled me down and after that I made three good breaks I've been practising hard and I'm optimistic. I fancy a good run. I got to the semi-finals of the UK Championship
in December, otherwise it has been a patchy season. You have to take the highs and lows and just keep working hard.”
The Englishman will next meet the former three-time World Snooker Champion, compatriot Ronnie O’Sullivan in the Last-16 round.
He spoke about his match against O’Sullivan, “I haven't played Ronnie for a while, it will be a big crowd and good fun. My scoring is my strong point and if my safety game is there as well I can beat anyone.”
Walden played against the Rocket once before in the final encounter of 2008 Shanghai Masters where he was victorious. However, beating O’Sullivan might be difficult for him this time because the Magician is now on top of his performance. As far as O’Sullivan’s
performance in the PTCs is concerned, he definitely surpasses Walden.
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