Yeah, Neil beat him 9-5 in the qualifier round robin, but Darren still got through.
Darren only dry broke once in his 13-12 race while Neil had several dry breaks. I think Darren mentioned 6 to 8 break and runs for him in the match, so that's pretty hard to fade.
It was déjà vu for Darren a la W9B final v Li Hewen few years ago
He was leading few racks until hill before he made some unlikely errors like missing a relatively easy 8 ball down the rail
Those Neil Robertson-Yang Fan and Selby-Meiling last 16 matches were 2 of best hill-hill thrillers in this tourney
Seldom have I seen 2 matches having similar cliffhanger final racks. Only watched the last few racks but will definitely watch them when they are up on Youtube
Both matches were Pool players (Meiling, Yang Fan) v Snooker (Selby, Robertson)
Both matches were fast loose players (Meiling, Yang Fan) vs slow methodical players (Selby, Robertson)
Both matches went see saw with both players having chances to win
Robertson was running out until he hooked himself on the black. He took probably 5 minutes to figure out what to do. Instead of kicking the black, he gave up BIH to Yang by shooting between 2 balls up table probably trying to send the balls to rails.
He gave Yang a pat on shoulder probably saying something along lines of it is your game
With BIH and open table, it was Yang's match. Somehow he scratched centre pocket with about 2 balls left. He conceded
Selby-Meiling had Meiling breaking for final rack but he came up dry. Some exchange and Meiling's turn and he missed a relatively easy pot in side pocket. Selby's turn and was running out and missed his remaining red stripe ball in corner . Meiling's turn but then he hooked himself on 1 ball. Some safety exchanges before Selby made the excellent gutsy zig zag shot that only Efren used to play
