Ding battles to move to No.1 - 13/10/2011

Final: Ding Junhui 3-1 Ali Carter 0-96 (Carter 96), 67-7 (Ding 38), 72-51 (Ding 45), 72-1 (Ding 66)

Ding Junhui moved to the top of the 2011 PartyPoker.com Premier League with a 3-1 win over Ali Carter at the Biddulph Leisure Centre in Stoke-on-Trent. That was Ding’s first mini-tournament win in three starts and it moves him onto ten points; one ahead of the pack.

Carter, while disappointed at the final result, moves himself into the top half of the table and with two events still to go, the Essex star still has every chance of making the play-offs at Potters Leisure Resort in November.

Ding, though was pleased with his efforts despite the final being less than a classic; “I’m just pleased to be at the top of the table. This is a tricky format and it’s important to win your first match, but really I needed to win both games tonight and I did,” said a delighted Ding.

“I play Neil Robertson in my final night in Southampton so I must really focus on that one. Winning the Premier League is something that all the top players have done so I want to add my name to that list,” he added.

The match started perfectly for Carter as he ran in a break of 96 to take the early lead. However, that was to be his only contribution to the scoreboard.

The next two frames were scrappy but Ding dug in and won them and won them to leave himself with one more for the win. A break of 66 did the trick as the World No. 4 moved smoothly to the top of the table.