Six Grove players were in action for qualifying for the first major ranking tournament of the year, the Shanghai Masters.

Liu Song found himself in the draw at the expense of John Higgins, and took advantage by winning his first match against Ben Woollaston 5-3, including breaks of 91 and 84. Song was unable to keep this up however and went out in the next round 3-5 to James Wattana.

Liu Chuang was always going to find his first match tough against Michael White after Michael made breaks of 100 and 101 to take the first two frames. Chuang did rally with an excellent break of 111 in the fourth frame but could not keep this up, losing 2-5.

Jack Lisowski lost 3-5 to James McBain in round one and Matthew Selt, starting in round two, lost a very close match 4-5 to Alfie Burden.

Zhang Anda brought back echoes of his excellent run at the World Championships, reaching the last qualifying round after beating Jak Jones 5-4, Paul Davies 5-1 and Stuart Pettman 5-3. However it wasn’t to be a first “home” final for Anda and he lost in the last 48 2-5 to Matthew Stevens.

It was left for Judd Trump to fly the Grove flag in Shanghai this year. Judd knocked in breaks of 111, 76, 66 and 54 to beat Tom Ford 5-1 in the final qualifying round, to take his place in the last 32 where he will meet Stephen Maguire. The final stages take place in Shanghai on 6-12 September.