Solid Marco moves to the top - 28/10/2010

Ding Junhui 1 – 5 Marco Fu
2 – 94 (39, 44); 21 – 81 (42, 39); 0 – 65 (33); 5 – 94 (94); 77 (71) – 0, 20 – 107 (107)

Marco Fu won the first ever all-Chinese clash in the PartyCasino.com Premier League as he cruised past Ding Junhui 5-1 to leave himself in a strong position to qualify for next month’s play-offs.

By contrast, with his league programme now complete, Ding cannot reach the top four and is out of the competition.

Fu, a winner of this event in 2003, was too strong throughout and coupled with some bad misses from his opponent, it was plain sailing for the Hong Kong-based potter. It was Ding’s second heavy defeat in consecutive weeks – he lost 6-0 to Neil Robertson in Banbury.

Runs of 39, 44, 42 and 39 again, gave Fu the first two frames and he nicked the third with a break of 33 to seal a point. The second point came courtesy of a 94 break as Ding struggled. In fact by the close of the clinching fourth frame Fu had potted 100 balls to Ding’s ten.

Ding though put together a run of 71 to gain some respectability but Fu then delivered his first century of the competition in the final frame, a tasty 107, to run out a 5-1 winner.

“Toward the end I was relaxed and made the century but I got the two points which was the most important thing – the 100 was a bonus,” said Fu.

“I played very well without making any big breaks in the early stages. I made some good pots and put him under pressure and he didn’t pot a ball till the third frame.

“Maybe he’s taking the game too easy but he’s too good a player not to do well. Ding is having a bad run but there are so many tournaments so he won’t be too disappointed.”