Ding reaches the Final at the 2022 UK Championship
The 2022 UK Championship was played in two phases. Tiered qualifiers were held in Ponds Forge in Sheffield from the 5th to the 10th of November 2022, followed by the 32 players’ main tournament, played at the Barbican in York, from the 12th to the 20th of November 2022.
Zhao Xintong was the defending Champion. The event was won by Mark Allen, who beat Ding Junhui by 10-7 in the Final.
All professional Grove players were involved. Ali and Ding needed to qualify. Ding was successful.
The detailed qualifiers’ results are available on snooker.org
The main event results are also available on snooker.org.
Both Neil Robertson, who was suffering from a chest infection, and Mark Selby went out in the first round.
Judd Trump beat Xiao Guodong in the first round but went out to Shaun Murphy in the second round. Both matches went to a deciding frame.
Ding defeated Barry Hawkins by 6-3 in the first round, making his 600th career century in frame 5. He’s only the 7th player to get 600 centuries or more. In the second round (last 16), he beat Jamie Clarke by 6-1. In the quarter-finals, he faced Ronnie O’Sullivan and, remarkably, beat him by 6-0. It was the first time O’Sullivan had been whitewashed in a Triple Crown event.
In the semi-finals, Ding faced Tom Ford and won the match by 6-3.
The final was a match in two halves: Ding totally dominated the first session: he went 6-2 ahead. Mark Allen though was in blistering form in the evening: he won the second session by 8-1. Ding didn’t do much wrong, Allen was just exceptional that evening.
This is what Ding had to say after the match (source WST):
“Mark was very strong when he came back at me. He’s always been a good come-back player, so I didn’t relax. I didn’t make that many mistakes, he just potted long ones, made big breaks and centuries. At 6-6 I lost a bit of feeling, he played much better in the second half. I didn’t make any breaks and suddenly he was in charge of the game.
“In the last frame I had a chance, maybe if it was 9-8 then anything could have happened. I’m disappointed, I had this great chance to win a title. But it’s always the best player that wins the trophy. I’ll stay confident, keep my head up and work hard. There’s nothing I need to change. Things are going well. I can’t get everything back in one week, I can only try and win more tournaments.”
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