The last 128 qualifying round for the International Championship 2016 was played in Preston from 26 to 29 September, 2016. All Grove players entered. Neil, Judd, Luca, Oliver and Li Hang won their match and will be in Daqing at the end of October

With the longer format – this was best of 11 – most matches were won by the highest ranked player, but that doesn’t mean it was always easy.A prime example of that was Neil’s match against young Sam Craigie. It was extremely high quality, and Neil looked in real danger when he found himself 5-3 down. Experience and sheer will to win got him through. After the match Neil came on twitter praising his young opponent and claiming this was the best safety game he had to play against for a long time.

Here is the match, well worth watching:

James Cahill went down by 6-4 to Ronnie O’Sullivan but not without a fight! James won the first frame before Ronnie took five frames on the bounce, needing just one more for the win. That’s when James found something and pegged him back at 5-4. Ronnie however took the 10th for the win, but he was made to work for it!

All detailed results are on Cuetracker as usual