England and Scotland Crash Out at Quarter-Finals Stage

England crashed out of the PTT-EGAT Snooker World Cup as they slumped to a surprise quarter-final defeat against Hong Kong.
 
The English side of Mark Selby and Ali Carter, ranked third and sixth in the world, were favourites to beat a Hong Kong pairing that included amateur Fung Kwok Wai and world number 23 Marco Fu.
 
But the Asian team recorded a 4-3 victory on day six at the Bangkok Convention Centre in Thailand.
 
"They were just lucky at the end of the day," said a furious Carter.
 
“We never performed but we never had to to be able to beat them. On five or six occasions with them in all sorts of trouble they got out of the snooker at the fourth attempt and fluked it where we couldn't hit it. We couldn't buy a lucky shot.
 
"Hong Kong are used to playing in these conditions but we don't get to play in conditions like that in the UK and that's a big advantage for them.
 
"But at the end of the day we missed too many balls and that's why we didn't get through.
 
"We played terribly as a team and never won a doubles game. That was not out fault as it's very difficult to get any sort of rhythm when the frames are an hour.”
 
Scotland were left distraught as they also lost a deciding frame – against Northern Ireland - in the match of the tournament so far.
 
Both sides had chances to win before the duo of Mark Allen and Gerard Greene defeated John Higgins and Stephen Maguire.
 
Reigning World Champion Higgins and current world number eight Maguire were hotly-tipped to win the $200,000 first prize.
 
"I'm absolutely gutted," said Higgins. "Fair play to Northern Ireland as they played some good stuff and Stephen didn't get a chance in his singles games - he was frozen out.
 
"The story of the match is my two terrible misses on two reds; the last red in the first frame against Mark and then the red at the end of the last frame when I was 20 up. If you miss those you don't deserve to win.”
 
China advanced into the semi-finals but their 4-1 victory over Republic of Ireland was a controversial one.
 
Ireland's Ken Doherty believed China should have been docked a frame as Liang Wenbo started his singles match against Fergal O'Brien without a bow-tie.
 
Doherty said: "Liang turned up to play without his dicky bow on in the second frame and that's a dress code violation.
 
"The referee didn't realise it at first and Liang just gets a letter and fine for a dress code violation but he should've been docked a frame.
 
"If you play in one of the biggest tournaments, which this is, every advantage makes a difference.
 
"I'm not saying it would have had a big bearing on the match and it's not sour grapes but if they got docked a frame you never know what would've happened.”
 
Wales maintained their impressive performance with a 4-2 victory over an Australian side that included 2010 World Champion Neil Robertson.
 
"The Welsh team are looking good and I think they'll go on to win it,” said Robertson. “They have the world number one Mark Williams and Matthew Stevens as well and they're good friends off the table which is important."
 
 
PTT-EGAT SNOOKER WORLD CUP
DAY SIX RESULTS
QUARTER-FINALS
Wales 4-2 Australia, China 4-1 Republic of Ireland, England 3-4 Hong Kong, Scotland 3-4 Northern Ireland.
 
FIXTURES – SUNDAY, JULY 17
SEMI-FINALS (BEST OF SEVEN)
1pm: Wales v China then Northern Ireland v Hong Kong.
 
FINAL (BEST OF SEVEN)
9.30pm: