Q-School day 3

Getting close to the business end now, first our direct tour card winners. First guy in was Karel Sedlacek - should be familiar to most, previous world championship contender, European Tour quarter finalist, very welcome addition to the tour who beat Berry van Peer in the final, along with some decent scalps beforehand. Second player is Jeff Smith, had a fairly quiet 2019, but the Canadian's back on the pro circuit, denying Seigo Asada in the final, didn't have the trickiest run, but we know what he can do when he's on it, question is how much he'll be able to play really. Finally we have Aaron Beeney. OK then, here's what he's done previously to this weekend:

That's, er, not great, and it's from a year ago, here's what he did today, after losing 5-1 yesterday with a 65 average and 5-4 on Thursday with another sub-70 average:

Jesus christ. He's won EVERY game from the last 128 onwards averaging lower than his opponent, and hasn't broken 90 in a single match. I don't recognise a single player he's faced up until he got through to Dave Ladley (Ricky Clarke I guess rings a slight bell?), and even then it's not exactly the top tier of possible opponents. When you consider from the last sixteen stage the other half had, as well as Smith and Asada, John Bowles, Paul Nicholson, Ryan Murray (maybe not that well known but he has 14 points already and is effectively guaranteed a card), Lee Evans, Ryan Hogarth and Willie Borland, that's a sign of how silly Q-School is. I've posted several times previously in the past about how you could reform Q-School to make it more equitable, fairer and give the cream every chance to rise to the top, while still not being difficult to administer, I'll repost something later.

So, to the points. The UK qualifier is a bit easier. Murray's in, Hamilton's effectively in, Heta and Jacques are both on 11 and should be fine, Steve Brown's stuck on 10 and will stay on 10 as he says he has some JDC stuff to fix, will that be enough? Ashton, Tabern, Hunt, and Atkins (I assume Wigan) are all on 9 and could do with another couple of points to be absolutely safe. Pilgrim is on 8, then there's a whole clutch of players on 6/7 points who could do with winning their board as a very minimum to stand a chance. Nicholson, Fitton and Richardson are some obviously notable ones aside from a few players who went deep today that have already been mentioned. Think Edhouse is on 5 or 6 as well (I'm counting 7, but I think he was missed on the PDC graphic? [edit - missed him in the bottom left, he is on 7])

On the EU side, it's a right mess. Kleermaker, Telnekes, van Duijvenbode and van Peer are all on 12. Larsson, Tricole and Kciuk are a point back. There's only seven cards on countback so everyone else is outside. Harms and Krcmar are one off, Munch, Lerchbacher and Rusty-Jake are two off, then it expands exponentially - Harris, Huybrechts, Nilsson and Vandenboegaerde are all on 8.

There's quite a few big names who are in bink only mode - in Europe you're needing 5/6 by now to stand any chance without binking it all, so Perales, Koltsov, Nijman, Pratnemer are looking in real trouble, probably chuck Veenstra, Mandigers and Unterbuchner in as well. In the UK you're probably needing about the same, so Jim Williams, Menzies, Burton, David Evans, Norris, Jenkins, Barry, McKinstry, Mitchell, Rafferty, Fullwell, Monk, Sherrock, Waites (if he shows up again), and Scott Taylor (same) are all needing that miracle run.