{"id":25973,"date":"2018-02-23T13:21:13","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T13:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jomec.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/?p=25973"},"modified":"2018-02-23T13:21:13","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T13:21:13","slug":"snooker-stars-descend-motorpoint-welsh-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/23\/snooker-stars-descend-motorpoint-welsh-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Snooker stars descend on the Motorpoint for Welsh Open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">FOURTEEN of Wales\u2019 finest snooker players will join the world&#8217;s best at the Motorpoint Arena next week as the 2018 Welsh Open gets underway.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark Williams and Ryan Day represent Wales\u2019 best chance at the tournament with the world numbers 10 and 17 hoping to put together a better campaign than last year.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2017 Ryan Day lost to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in the second round, while Williams lost to Elliot Slessor 3-4 in the first round.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">16-year-old Jackson Page, who made national news last year after reaching the third round only to be beaten by eventual runner up Judd Trump, is back for a second year.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Ebbw Vale schoolboy, who is still an amateur, makes the cut after Joe Swail pulled out due to a family illness.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He will face world number 123 Sean O\u2019Sullivan in the first round.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Newport\u2019s Darren Morgan, who was beaten by Stephen Hendry at the 1992 Welsh Open, hopes to return to the tournament through pre-qualifying.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He faces fellow Welshman Rhydian Richards on Monday for a place in the first round.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Last year\u2019s champion Stuart Bingham also returns after serving three months of his six month ban for betting breaches.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bingham was found guilty of breaking the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association rules on betting on matches.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is estimated that he placed \u00a335,771 on bets on snooker, including on matches involving himself.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The remaining three months of his six month ban will be suspended.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tournament will be Bingham\u2019s second appearance this season after he reached the 2nd round<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">at the World Grand Prix in Preston this week before losing to Anthony McGill 4-1.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Welsh Open, which returned to Cardiff in 2015 after a spending a decade in Newport, is part of the Home Series which include the English, Irish and Scottish Opens.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It will once again be hosted at the Motorpoint Arena, running from February 26 to March 4.<\/span><br \/>\nTickets are available via www.worldsnooker.com\/tickets<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FOURTEEN of Wales\u2019 finest snooker players will join the world&#8217;s best at the Motorpoint Arena next week as the 2018 Welsh Open gets underway. Mark Williams and Ryan Day represent Wales\u2019 best chance at the tournament with the world numbers 10 and 17 hoping to put together a better campaign than last year. In 2017 Ryan Day lost to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in the second round, while Williams lost to Elliot Slessor 3-4 in the first round. 16-year-old Jackson Page, who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":25974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[579,4],"tags":[576,604,3403,3404,580,4375,581],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-25973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snooker","category-sport","tag-jackson-page","tag-mark-williams","tag-osullivan","tag-ryan-day","tag-snooker-2","tag-stuart-bingham","tag-welsh-open"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Snooker stars descend on the Motorpoint for Welsh Open - The Cardiffian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2018\/02\/23\/snooker-stars-descend-motorpoint-welsh-open\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Snooker stars descend on the Motorpoint for Welsh Open - The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FOURTEEN of Wales\u2019 finest snooker players will join the world&#8217;s best at the Motorpoint Arena next week as the 2018 Welsh Open gets underway. Mark Williams and Ryan Day represent Wales\u2019 best chance at the tournament with the world numbers 10 and 17 hoping to put together a better campaign than last year. 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