Day 2 was a very busy and a hard day for our Irish players in the 2017 World IBSF Under 21 Snooker Championships here in Beijing China. All five Irish players Shane Bates, Aaron Holland, Noel Landers, Darragh Cusack and Ronan Whyte were in action, playing a total of seven matches in trying to qualify from their groups for the knock out stages.
In the early morning session Ronan Whyte lost 0-4 to Asutosh Padhy from India and he also lost 1-4 to Enes Bakirci from Turkey in the final session. Ronan will now play his final group match against Mikey Stewart from New Zealand tomorrow looking for his first victory.
Darragh Cusack lost to 1-4 to Patrik Tiihonen from Finland in a match much closer than the score line suggests as despite a top break of 68 by Cusack, Darragh lost all the frames on the black. Darragh now faces Eduardo DeSiqueira from Brazil in his final group match.
Aaron Holland played two good matches but he lost to Brian Ochoiski from France 2-4 with a top break of 72 and later he lost to Tawan Pooltong from Thailand 2-4 in another tight match to end his campaign for this year.
Noel Landers lost a very close match to Florian Nüßle from Austria 2-4 which included top breaks of 53 and 57 but his Austrian opponent had a 87 break in the final frame to secure victory. A win over Mehrab Soltanali from Iran tomorrow will see the Youghal man qualify from his group.
Shane Bates beat Hrithik Jain from India 4-3 with a top break of 65 to stay unbeaten in his group and a win over Keishin Kamihashi from Iran tomorrow will see the Wexford man top his group.
You can follow all the live scoring and results from China on www.ibsf.info and on www.ebsa.pl
Good luck Team Ireland!!!!!!
