Kurt Maflin makes it to the last 32 after beating Mark King in China Open 2011 qualifiers – Snooker news
The Norwegian professional Kurt Maflin finally made it to the China Open 2011 beating Mark King in the last round of the qualifiers held at the World Snooker Academy on February 27.
Kurt Maflin, the world number 82, has played excellent game all the way. He started from the very first round and had beaten his opponents Simon Bedford, Jack Lisowski, and Dave Harold with the frame scores of 5-2, 5-4, and 5-1, respectively.
Kurt Maflin also holds the highest break of 140 playing against Jack Lisowski in round 2.
Now in the final round after beating Mark King by a frame score of 5-1 again, he is through to the last 32 of the China Open.
His match against Mark was again one of the best matches played on the final day.
The overall score-line between him and Mark was 134-0, 11-95, 0-117, 7-72, 25-103, and 1-93.
Mark King was off with a flying start in the first frame as he produced a magnificent 134 to take the first blood 1-0.
In the second frame King was again the first one to be among the balls but he broke at 11 this time bringing his opponent on the table who responded with a break of 55 before giving him snooker. A deadly snooker from Maflin made King give away 15 odd-points
and a frame winning chance. Maflin rolled in the final 25 to level the things 1-1.
Third frame was completely dominated by Maflin as he giving no chance to his opponent made a classy break of 117 to lead by 2-1 now. Following frame was also pocketed by Maflin with dominant breaks of 26 and 46.
King, who was now trailing Maflin by 3-1, had his chance in the fifth but he again lost his nerve after making a break of 25 whereas Maflin on the other hand again compiled a mind boggling century, 103, making the scores 4-1.
Maflin was now only one frame away reach the finish line.
In the sixth frame, Maflin wasn’t able to produce any big breaks in the start even when he was on the table twice among reds but excellent safety skills from his side left King with no chance till another 52 from Maflin finished the matters off 5-1.
Kurt Maflin after clearing all four rounds will now be up against ‘The Chinese Sensation’ Ding Junhui on March 29, 2011. It is going to be a promising match for sure as Maflin is in top form and Ding on the contrary will have the home crowd support with
him.
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