Zhao Xintong vs Adam Duffy | 2022 Championship League Snooker | Ranking Event | Stage 1

so our referee is rob spencer adam duffy breaks off taking on jas in tong and i'm delighted to say joining me in the commentary box is the the 2005 world champion sean murphy 17 years ago sean where did that go just to tell you folks sean isn't being ignorant ignoring my my rhetorical question he's got a technical problem with his microphone which we will get sorted out in in next to no time new experience this for both of them joe and duffy have never played before and duffy knows all about the reputation of his opponent now when he's on his dynamite i'm back phil six told you it'd be next to no time tony drago would have had the frame one in that time what are these two doing son well it's an oft repeated statistic he has won the quickest ever frame tony drago three minutes against danny fowler made a 70 plus break fish bash bosh thank you very much yeah the thing about that that never gets mentioned is that that three minute frame would have involved a break off maybe one or two safety shots from each player and then a break never see anything like that again well of course when his snooker career was winding down drago became a very good nine ball pool player he was the most valuable player in a moscow kneecap team he won the world pool masters as well and regularly he used to run racks regularly inside a minute by the way that's full racks not the ones that end quickly with a an early combination 19 20 pretty awkward sequence this you can see the black tied up not available into either pocket i don't think where the reds are set pink up in the wrong half of the table again makes this extra complicated of course theoretically you don't need those balls in play you can use the blue keep getting top side of the blue by top side we mean above the line of the middle pockets across that line in the middle of the table just as he's finished there just the ball the top side of the blue keep finishing there then you can always come back down for the red so theoretically he doesn't need the black or pink here bleed extends to 31 30 32 he possesses all the power you would ever need as he has in tong but he's also got that delicate touch and i think on this table which is going so nicely being able to float the balls around just his liking if he wants to he might play for the red directly above the black he finishes high on it would leave him the angle to move the red that's on the black spot in the same shot now not from there but if the cue ball was a few inches further down towards the black cushion he would have ideal position to play that shot not this time 44 i wasn't sure if the black went into the right hand corner pocket but it does now he can move the red cover in the spot and he's taken these very nicely so far just needs to get some spin on this cue ball here needs to make contact with the red here immediately to his left perfectly played and now should be a clear run to the line in this frame he can be devastating we talked about his uk championship triumph that was the breakthrough but only eight weeks later he won the german masters at the the tempered room in berlin and did so in historic fashion 67 whitewashed the ending tail nine nil in the final all of the world ranking finals we've had over the years was only the third time a two-session ranking event final had resulted in a whitewash the players responsible for the other two half decent steve davis and neil robertson well what we do know is if this form that he's showing here today is a sign of things to come for the rest of the season then he could very well add a few more trophies for that tally by the time things are totaled up by the end of the year assuming this goes in have you ever seen compiled with such consumer's ease 105 made 105 break in the first session and he's going to stop on exactly the same figure this time because the cue ball just bounced slightly too much the ball position on the yellow what a start though from he's a player who has no limit it seems to me to be how good he can he leads one nil against adam duffy who has got a really tough task to pull this around he looked like he lost it can't say that's the killer blow well you can say it was a hammer blow devastating breaks he's on the brink solomon frame on the board mighty good in doing it what a way to open your account for the season i get the feeling it will not be his last trophy this campaign snooker's top players the second make the game which is extremely difficult as millions will tell you they make the game look preposterously easy a classic example of that was the way when the first frame in this match a break of 105 92nd century of the day and right now everything shawn is going according to plan that was very very good that first frame great control of the cue ball and what was an awkward break with the black being tied up for the majority of it and the pink being at the wrong end of the table adam duffy hasn't done a great deal wrong yet at all that long red wasn't far off but he has left what an immediate chance here for xiao who as we say looks in great form now i'm sure he'll choose to play the split here and play this with top spin and a touch of right hand side doesn't want to play it with too much top spins because it's easy to arc around the back of reds actually does the the reverse of what you think you think you need the top spin to get into the reds actually did too much top spin pushes the cue ball wide as we see here on the replay he has too much spin on it he actually misses goes around the pack you need to play those shots with a bit more of a dead cue ball more down towards the middle really good call shawn and really good insight as well a bit thick on the safety shot there just you need to skim those reds really thin he has left this red that's popped out the pack it's going to be awkward queuing over the yellow choosing against it choosing this red i don't think he's going to go for this red ridiculous that was very very high tariff was leaving reds had he missed it i didn't think he was going to play that i thought he was going to play safe but i guess that shows the confidence of the young man now rob spencer just checking to see if there's room for the black on its own spot and there mustn't be as he's checking the pink spot it's very congested in there you need a very calm hand steady hand to do that job eight so that's messed things up a little bit might even play for the green here just to get the green out of the way no it's a little bit short but it shouldn't be a problem to use the red next door as the bumper to hold amazing how different players see the break differently would have had to have played the cannon there jow preferring to play at the top spin on the cushion same difference that's an element of jow's game that is going to require work plagued him for a few years yes he's had mega success winning the uk championships and german masters and he's a fantastic player to watch but that elementary miss has always been and is still in his game he wants to really scale the heights of this great game of ours he's gonna have to iron those silly little mistakes out what really was a cracking pot with the rest took a chance going into the reds couldn't avoid them see playing it with right hand side screwing into the reds screw kept the cube all out of the pack he's on this pink where's his kiss gonna be is he gonna hit this red on the cushion finished a bit twixt in between played for the red near the black spot not sure if he overhit it or under hit it you have to ask him but he wants to play the red to the right of the cue ball into the bottom right hand corner that's a very difficult part along the cushion it's even more difficult mentally when you know you should have been in an easier position than this time's hard to steady the ship thanks oh that's first class that really was nice he was off the tour for four years adam duffy relegated in 2018 returned a month or so ago through q school he was actually working as a bricklayer hadn't practiced a great deal for q school didn't go there with any massive expectations but everything fell into place unlike that positional shot it's very unlucky here i mean you can see this way the balls are shaped there the cue ball was always going to slide off and go this way on another day he could have knocked both reds over both corner pockets there now he's ironing this plant up this is very high tariff that is a fabulous show he's very very talented player is adam duffy very very talented very creative player at q school in the final match to gain his card he defeated a good friend of his from wales a former world ranking event semi-finalist daniel wells 4-3 he was 3-2 down went frame six on the black and then added the decider adam duffy 90 a bit like zhao zingtong a few shots ago those kind of simple easy misses are going to have to come out of his game i think he actually hit the wrong side of that as we said in his previous match you can just see here playing it with the right hand side push the cue ball offline the wrong side of that red just cue down very steeply into the back of the ball does adam and not what the textbooks would tell you to do it's something that he's taught himself not easy to control the cue ball on these cloths on these conditions when you're striking down on it so much if you watch this shot you'll notice his back arm is his grip hand is significantly higher than his bridge hand the incline of the cue is very steep yeah i hadn't seen him play for a while when i watched his match earlier today maybe it's just my perception but i thought his connection was slightly different to when i remembered him being on the circuit for the first time i think he's always had a very close bridge hand and he's got a very distinctive right elbow position that previous camera shot there gave you a good shot of how steep the cue attacks the cue ball which is absolutely fine you know all players have different idiosyncrasies in their swing but that is going to cause him problems on these tables it won't matter so much you know playing in clubs and exhibitions and things but competing on the main tour under these conditions with this cloth and these balls that's going to cause him some problems so something to think about holds the cue a long way towards the back as well and as i say that's good plot for one remember back when i used to live in sheffield i lived there for a few years of my life and i would have spent a lot of time with adam you know i knew him quite well and he was just a young man then you know from 2004 to 2008 you know he would have been quite young and just sort of started his snooker journey but he was always going to be a pro he you know he always had it in him to be he was the best player and the best of his crop from sheffield and that part of the country at the time you know very very good hard worker his game and as i say very gifted what he can be as gifted as you want if your opponent flukes a shot like that there's nothing he can do about that and that may well cost him this frame very unlucky when a player is good as jazz in tong flukes a ball it's almost fun and fair part of the game yes we know but i use this analogy a couple of times last season in commentary someone like him fluking a ball is it like a millionaire winning the lottery mind you the old gary player quote about the more i practice the luckier i get i think that does apply in snooker you know because throughout the 80s you heard players moaning about the steve davis had so much luck and then that moan was repeated in the 90s about steven hendry are they lucky no no we were just talking about tony drago actually and you might not know this sean but drago was a very scared flyer and so when we went to overseas tournaments wouldn't travel either out there or on the way back unless he could guarantee that steve davis or steven hendry was on his flight because he thought they were so lucky nothing would happen to them 27 33 points ahead after what's been a nice break so far following that fluke 33 so he needs two of these three remaining reds 34 he pops this pink he'll be 40 points ahead with just 43 remaining so he'll only need to pop the red doesn't need to worry about getting on a color 40 40 40 what would you want the difference 35 on if he needs a couple of snookers or perhaps one snooker and a free ball duffy concedes with jow at the table and so i'm afraid he's up against a man who spent the last few years as a bricklayer as for jow well he's laying the foundations for progress into the second phase of this bed victor championship league he's won his first match three nil and he's two nil ahead in this one so far today five frames played actually six frames played and he's won five of them he beat michael hulk 3-1 earlier and now he's on the verge of another three points here again speaking to the natural talent that he no doubt possesses very very gifted player and he floated this red this was in this was mark williams-esque good clever shot as well had he missed it he wouldn't have been leaving anything and that's a better shot than it looked played with a lot of check side right hand side in this case to bring the cue ball back between the yellow and brown having gone up there originally cue ball would have hit the yellow on the way back but for the side spin that he put on the ball it's just short pace this time though he needs to be at the top of side of the blue as we said before so black not available pink not available something will have to be moved soon if this breaks to continue might be able to pop the blue in the middle with lots of left hand side and get something moving now he's going deep on the cue ball playing something else lost the cue ball slightly here needs a bit of good fortune 12 he is his body language suggests he is 13 top side of the blue this time it's fine now do either of those two reds above the black pot into this bottom left hand corner if they do might play for one of them now i just wonder having finished perfectly on those two reds can he dislodge the red away from the black and could would be away here in this frame finish wrong side of the blue again we call this the snowball effect in brake building it starts very small problem shot after shot you just lose the cue ball until eventually you've got this big mountainous snowball rolling down the hill catches up with you and you either miss or run out of position it can't be a mountain of snowball if it's rolling down a hill it's either one thing or the other i'd just like to clarify i didn't invent the saying but i am repeating it at every opportunity but the point still stands he's finally ran out of position couldn't retrieve it didn't mean to hit the yellow that mountainous snowball got in his way it's very close but perhaps a step too far unless he's got away with it behind the blue his turn for a bit of good fortune maybe what it really has been fantastic to see xiao come through as a a double ranking titlist last season and of course yan bigtao winning the masters as well really is a shame because of the covid19 pandemic that since they've become two real stars of the game they've not had the opportunity sean to buy their trade on home soil yeah absolutely i guess that's something that certainly the european players and british players take for granted to some degree a very very strange and challenging last couple of years for everybody with the pandemic but you're absolutely right you know the far east and china play such a big role in the success of our tour and you know the guys have done really really well in winning those chamois chips as you say and to not have had the chance to show the home crowds there in china and in their home cities their success and have those a bit like the football teams do here have those you know open bus open top bus tour moments parading trophies and the like let's hope that it's not too far away those days where we can get back out there and they can receive the funfair that they no doubt deserve what a tremendous shot this was kibble and black so close together having to use the rest made it look so easy thank you another point worth making with jow and yan bingtao doing so well if the world cup was resurrected right now lynch and way would be in the china bt 25 26 i think one of the other things you know for any young players watching this anyone trying to forge a career in snooker i guess in any sport you know it's very easy after you have success of any kind to rest on your laurels a little bit and of course well documented the academies that these lads practicing in sheffield under their watchful eye of victoria well it's a monster kick absolute monster kick inspecting the cue ball there what i was going to say was that you know it's not just not really the way they do things you know they practice so hard and you know just a few days after winning the uk champs he would have been back in the academy working on his game and it's no surprise that just a few weeks later he won the german masters they really do work hard well talking about german masters and this isn't urban myth it is definitely the truth the day after yan bingtao lost nine nil as you know yan bingtao was back practicing just lost a final nine nil next day straight in there both of them are so dedicated and they're reaping the rewards although that safety wasn't too clever that was very nice there wasn't much room up the top end of the table there because adam likes to get his bridge hand very close to the cue ball as you can see there's not much room for that there under that cushion so to play that is a lovely nice long follow-through through the cue ball spun the cue ball very well there unless that was a heavy contact which i don't think it was really bad miss well cue ball is being cleaned so i think we'll give him the before sean and you can watch this on youtube if you want to you suffered one of the the biggest kicks anyone's ever seen it went sideways i remember it's in the poland's a classic and i think i think the object ball actually went the wrong way it was like a half ball shot to this bottom left hand corner pocket and uh yeah it was an absolute monster very easy to sound like a broken record but of course you know we're seeing you can see the chalk that jow's using that's not the reduced friction brand the towen brand that a lot of us use and you can see the dust and the chalk dust on the table the debris that's littering the bays and that is what causes kicks we now know that it's not an old wife's tale anymore we know that increased friction is what causes kicks and big bounces off cushions really you know unless unless players are being paid to endorse a particular chalk brand i don't really understand any player who hasn't made the switch yeah the majority of tour players now using the 21 chalk from finland which has undoubtedly revolutionized the game picks as we've seen in this frame haven't been eradicated but they've been radically reduced 27 no kick there and it's frame and match ball in 28 maybe just a lapse of concentration is that going to be costly had the thing gone in i'm sure that if he would have conceded as it is he's 34 behind with 25 on well that's a nice shot first glance it's quite hard to hit come round two maybe three cushions this way doesn't want to hit the pink that'll change things nice shot very nice shot that's the problem with laying snookers isn't he's chasing i think three snookers here to get those three snookers you probably have to lay a dozen was remember a china open semi-final between ding and gary wilson went to a decider ding needed multiple snookers he laid one after the other but to no avail that's the point we say he needs three snookers what we should say is that he needs three successful snookers and that's an entirely different kettle three all the move point now because the green goes in adam duffy walks forward to offer his hand in concession and so the day of zhao zingtong keeps getting better he's had a century break in both of his matches he beat michael holt three one first time out there it was a very comprehensive three nil win over adam duffy and xiao reclaim reclaims top place in the table next up duffy remains out there to take on holt