Bai Watch

This afternoon Bai Langning plays his second match since retrieving his place on the WST, a place lost in large part due to Bai Langning's parents deciding that their offspring shouldn't spend time in a country whose Prime Minister had recommended searching out Covid sufferers and shaking them by the hand, and who having subsequently required extensive medical treatment had rewarded the non-British nurses whose exemplary actions had saved his life by announcing in the House of Commons that having given the matter the most rigorous analysis that those nurses if they in turn contracted Covid, should not be treated free of charge in the United Kingdom. Stand on the steps and applaud the nurses perhaps the limit of Conservative gratitude.

Questioned by his parents Bai Langning was unable to explain adequately why the United Kingdom which, thanks to Brexit, had £350M per week more to spend on its national health service than any other country in the world had such a high excess death toll. Understandably Bai Langning's parents felt that the long-term future of their offspring would best be served by taking a break from his participation on the WST until matters cleared. After the most careful consideration Bai Langning's parents agreed that Bai Langning should return to the United Kingdom for the 2021 World Championship provided that the tournament qualifiers were staged in a normal venue.

Bai Langning indeed returned and began his Crucible campaign with a methodical victory over Allan Taylor. Never headed Bai Langning sealed the match with a 136 break. Next up Alan McManus, ex-Dubai Classic and Thailand Open champion. Having trailed twice Bai Langning squared the tie at 3-3 with a century and accelerated to victory. Alan McManus, deeply impressed by his opponent, promptly announced his retirement. Bai Langning displayed his resilience against Ben Woollaston, the professional player most traumatised by being kept in an isolation cell during WST tournaments in Milton Keynes, coming through a difficult match having at one time trailed 4-1. Saving his place on tour now a realistic prospect unfortunately Bai Langning came up against Martin Gould, top 16 player on the one-year money list. Despite a promising start Bai Langning could not prevent Pinner's popular potter prevailing.

Unable to escape from the purgatory of QSchool 2021 Bai Langning nonetheless finished 9th on the order of merit which in the bizarre 2021-22 season permitted him to play most tour events. A last eight place in the Championship League and an opening round win at the British Open foretold an excellent season - it never happened.

Unexpectedly QSchool 2022 proved a cakewalk, Bai Langning pocketed at least double the points of each of his opponents, up until the winner takes all clash with Akani Songsermsawad. Outscored, probably even Bai Langning couldn't explain exactly how he managed to win, but win he did and could return to China to celebrate.

Having skipped both Championship League and European Masters Bai Langning re-entered the United Kingdom in time to lose 4-1 in the opening round of the British Open to Zhao Xintong. In the UK Championship Bai Langning will play his first match against an opponent ranked 81-112. Delighted to avoid Michael White, less enamoured to have drawn the even shorter straw Marco Fu. Regardless of the result Bai Langning will head to Edinburgh for the Scottish Open where he will encounter current World champion Ronnie O'Sullivan. Three tough tough draws.

And a fourth. Today Bai Langning plays his second professional match of the season, an English Open qualifier, against world number 17 (at the time of the draw) Ricky Walden. Let's watache.

Bai Watch - lolz.

Great write up

SnookerFan wrote:

Have you met Bai Langning? Are you aware of the family circumstances that led to him missing the 2020-21 season?


Anyway, after spending some extra time with said parents in Songyuan, he flew back to Sheffield on 23rd September. Unfortunately his luggage was lost and he had to play the match against Zhao Xintong with a borrowed cue. The commentators Dave Hendon and Alan MacManus seemed unaware of this and criticised his play harshly.

He'll do well to stay on tour, but it might help that his coach Roger Leighton has been in the UK. Bai is a very technical player and Roger knows how to get the best out of him. But he will need a couple of decent draws to get his season started.

lhpirnie wrote:Have you met Bai Langning? Are you aware of the family circumstances that led to him missing the 2020-21 season?


Anyway, after spending some extra time with said parents in Songyuan, he flew back to Sheffield on 23rd September. Unfortunately his luggage was lost and he had to play the match against Zhao Xintong with a borrowed cue. The commentators Dave Hendon and Alan MacManus seemed unaware of this and criticised his play harshly.

He'll do well to stay on tour, but it might help that his coach Roger Leighton has been in the UK. Bai is a very technical player and Roger knows how to get the best out of him. But he will need a couple of decent draws to get his season started.

To be completely honest I'm not privy to Bai Langning family discussions so call it speculation or creative licence if you prefer. However I doubt that there's a single family which has been subjected to a lockdown for which the pandemic hasn't been a major subject of conversation. How different things might have been in the West if our politicians had been less complacent in early 2020. Imagine if direct flights between Wuhan and London, Paris and Rome had been halted from mid-January 2020 for example.

Returning to the 2022-23 season with the German Masters delivering Neil Robertson the cumulative odds of five opening round draws this difficult now comfortably exceeds 1000/1. Watching the opening two frames (v Ricky Walden) I thought Bai Langning performed reasonably, but unsurprisingly given the quality of the opposition paid cash for less than perfect shot selection. It must be incredibly challenging, though, to play knowing that you have no immediate respite from a string of top quality opponents. If fortune evens itself out over the tour card two years Bai Langning may benefit from a string of easy draws next season which could work in his favour if the most likely route to retaining his tour card turns out to be via the one year list. He deserves that chance. Let's watache.

Gninnur Karona making a faultless case for a return to a tiered system. Let the novices find their feet amongst themselves before throwing them to the lions.

gninnur karona wrote:

lhpirnie wrote:Have you met Bai Langning? Are you aware of the family circumstances that led to him missing the 2020-21 season?


Anyway, after spending some extra time with said parents in Songyuan, he flew back to Sheffield on 23rd September. Unfortunately his luggage was lost and he had to play the match against Zhao Xintong with a borrowed cue. The commentators Dave Hendon and Alan MacManus seemed unaware of this and criticised his play harshly.

He'll do well to stay on tour, but it might help that his coach Roger Leighton has been in the UK. Bai is a very technical player and Roger knows how to get the best out of him. But he will need a couple of decent draws to get his season started.

To be completely honest I'm not privy to Bai Langning family discussions so call it speculation or creative licence if you prefer. However I doubt that there's a single family which has been subjected to a lockdown for which the pandemic hasn't been a major subject of conversation. How different things might have been in the West if our politicians had been less complacent in early 2020. Imagine if direct flights between Wuhan and London, Paris and Rome had been halted from mid-January 2020 for example.

Returning to the 2022-23 season with the German Masters delivering Neil Robertson the cumulative odds of five opening round draws this difficult now comfortably exceeds 1000/1. Watching the opening two frames (v Ricky Walden) I thought Bai Langning performed reasonably, but unsurprisingly given the quality of the opposition paid cash for less than perfect shot selection. It must be incredibly challenging, though, to play knowing that you have no immediate respite from a string of top quality opponents. If fortune evens itself out over the tour card two years Bai Langning may benefit from a string of easy draws next season which could work in his favour if the most likely route to retaining his tour card turns out to be via the one year list. He deserves that chance. Let's watache.

Absalute bullocks there is no Evidence lockdowns did any difference to deaths if you dont die from this bucking cold you would have died from something else its life Lockdowns is the biggest mistake in any weston country we are paying for them now had we lockdown earlier Cost of Living and deaths from things like Cancer would have been even worst if thats possible.

SnookerEd25 wrote:Gninnur Karona making a faultless case for a return to a tiered system. Let the novices find their feet amongst themselves before throwing them to the lions.

Agree with this. Especially now they have qualifiers for all the 128 player tournaments it's a no-brainer.

It would allow the new players to build their confidence, and also make it more likely for the better players to rise up the rankings rather than it being so dependant on who gets the favourable draws

Top scientists around the world are just guessing stuff. Wild has all the answers. I think he could easily become Prime Minister of the UK if he wanted to.

Holden Chinaski wrote:Top scientists around the world are just guessing stuff. Wild has all the answers. I think he could easily become Prime Minister of the UK if he wanted to.

What has been achieved you have to be in lockdown for ever just look at china you got to move on it won't be defeated that was obvious to me in 2020 why are some people still in denial about it

chengdufan wrote:

Wildey wrote:you have to be in lockdown for ever just look at china

What the buck are you talking about???
I live in China and have not been in any lockdown since February 2020.
Do you have any idea at all what is happening, outside of your head?

Why the buck cant there be a Snooker Tournament there ?

Why do you have to isolate when you go there.

Why cant Zhou Yuelong Fly to see his family and come back in a week?

Answer Locking down

your kidding yourself mate

SnookerEd25 wrote:Gninnur Karona making a faultless case for a return to a tiered system. Let the novices find their feet amongst themselves before throwing them to the lions.

As I previously posted a return to the tiered system for the UK Championship is a mighty backward step - the major beneficiaries unsurprisingly being the top 16.

I would like to see a fairer distribution of the slots in the flat 128 draws. It isn't technically difficult to ensure that a player drawing a top 16 seed in round 1 of a tournament is then automatically allocated to a slot in the following tournament where, if they win their opening match, they will, no first round surprises, meet a 17-32 seed in round 2.

if there's quarantine for the bucking sniffles its ludicrously stupid and its lock down

Daffodil.

Well the thread started well, LHP added some interesting info and then…

Dan-cat wrote:Well the thread started well, LHP added some interesting info and then…

And then our glorious ruler threw his toys out of the pram and shat all over the thread, as he always does.

Yep, you can just about set your watch by it

Definitely an interesting thing to say on a forum for a sport with a huge Chinese fanbase.