Liam Pitchford and Andrew Baggaley will meet tomorrow after they both won through their round one and two matches by comfortable 4-0 scorelines.
Pitchford beat qualifier Adam Nutland 4-0 in the first round before taking care of his old club mate Sean Cullen in an equally impressive manner of 4-0 (11-6, 11-9, 11-7, 11-8).
Baggaley meanwhile, was equally as serene in his progress to the quarter-finals which makes this tie so much more anticipated. Baggaley beat Jojo Senorin 4-0 (11-5, 11-4, 11-3, 11-3) in a typically proficient manner before also beating the veteran Lorestas Trumpauskas in straight games 4-0 (11-5, 11-9, 11-5, 11-8).
They will be joined by the impressive Darius Knight in the quarter-finals who only dropped one game in his progress to this stage. He beat Michael O’Driscoll 4-1 who had earlier successfully overturned his seeding to beat Garth Kinlocke in four straight games to face Knight.
In the last 16 Knight was in even less forgiving nature when he faced Alim Hirji as he rushed to a 4-0 victory (11-8, 11-7, 11-9, 11-8).
Knight will face under-21s Champion Gavin Evans who again showed his nerve and extreme speed and power to beat both David Arrowsmith (4-0) and David Meads (4-1). With Evans in this kind of form he could prove to be a real threat and will cause Knight all sorts of problems – definitely not a quarter-final match to miss.
In the other quarter-finals Matt Ware will face Danny Reed after Ware beat Helshan Weerasinghe (4-1) and Emran Hussain (4-2) respectively while Reed overcame a tough challenge from Neil Charles in the first round, which he eventually won 4-2 with an 11-2 last game, before he beat Damien Nicholls 4-1 in the last 16.
In the bottom section of the draw there was high drama as both Chris Doran and Sam Walker came through seven game ties to face each other in the last 16. Doran beat Will Maybanks 4-3 and 11-8 in the last game – causing him to fall to his knees on match point in celebration, while Walker beat Richard Andrews 4-3 as well. However, his last game was much easier after he went 6-0 ahead before closing out the tie 11-3.
In their match Doran again came through 4-2 to reach the last eight where he will face number two seed Paul Drinkhall.
Drinkhall struggled starting his games against both Lewis Gray and David McBeath respectively. Gray took the first game 12-10 against Drinkhall but collapsed in the fourth game when he lost 15 consecutive points (including an 11-0 score) to eventually lose 4-1.
Drinkhall had even more trouble against McBeath as he trailed 2-1 before showing his fighting spirit to come through 4-2. With Drinkhall’s power and explosive forehand you have to beware the wounded animal and while he might have struggled today he will still cause big problems for his opponents tomorrow.
