Liang and Fu book world snooker championship places
SHEFFIELD, England (AFP) — China's Liang Wenbo booked his place at the world snooker championships on Friday with a commanding 10-5 win over Ian McCulloch in the final qualifying round.
The 21-year-old from Hei Longjiang joins compatriot Ding Junhui at the Crucible Theatre in April for the event, and the Chinese contingent could be further boosted by Liu Chuang who plays Dominic Dale in his qualifier later this weekend.
Liang, who is based at the World Snooker Academy in Sheffield, first gave note of his potential when he won the World Under-21 Championship in 2005.
He has since recorded some impressive results on the professional circuit, including a run to the last 32 of the Welsh Open in 2006, but to reach the televised stage of snooker's biggest tournament is certainly his finest achievement to date.
He stormed into a 5-0 lead over experienced Englishman McCulloch, a Crucible semi-finalist three years ago, with top breaks of 95 and 52.
McCulloch battled back to within three frames at 8-5, making a 109, but crucially lost the 14th frame after leading it 43-15.
Liang rounded off victory in the next with a 105.
"I'm very happy, I played well," said Liang. "I didn't feel nervous. I will try my best at the Crucible, I'll wait and see how it goes. I would like to draw Ding in the first round."
The Asian contingent at the championships will be boosted further with Hong Kong's Marco Fu also making it through, beating Alan McManus 10-3.
Fu has had the best season of his career having won the Grand Prix and will finish it at the Crucible after rolling in breaks of 76, 91, 58, 84, 69, 67, 62 and 116 against Scotland's McManus.
"Alan is a tough match player so it's a good win," said Fu, a semi-finalist at Sheffield two years ago.
"I would have been gutted to miss the Crucible, it's a disaster to miss out and I would have regarded this as a poor season if I had lost today.
"I hope I can be a threat at the tournament, it's nice to be considered among the contenders if people think I've got an outside chance. But it's so tough to call a winner because the standard is so close, I often try to predict the winners of matches and I get most of them wrong."
