Luca Brecel and Mark Williams among withdrawals from Wuhan Open

06/10/2023 16:08

World champion Luca Brecel and British Open champion Mark Williams have both withdrawn from the Wuhan Open which gets underway on Monday.

Graeme Dott and Dave Gilbert have also opted out of the new Chinese event, which begins the day after the ongoing English Open comes to an end in Brentwood.

Williams and Brecel were both beaten on Thursday evening in the Essex event, while Dott lost on Wednesday night in a remarkable game in which he led 3-0 and by 70 points in the fourth frame, only to lose 4-3 to Ricky Walden.

Brecel was edged 4-3 by Ding Junhui, while Williams was beaten by the same scoreline by Liu Hongyu in a match which started after 11pm and finished close to 1.30am on Friday.

The three-time world champion posted on social media on Friday: ‘Crazy, how can you start a game at 11.10pm finish at 1.30am and expect to perform any good.’

Gilbert withdrew earlier in the week than the others and has been replaced by Daniel Womersley in the opening round against wildcard Gong Chen Zhi.

Due to time and visa constraints, the other three opponents will all receive walk-overs, meaning Zihao Xing progresses from his held-over qualifying match to round two where he faces Michael White, while Zhang Anda and Noppon Saengkham will now meet each other in round three.