Most of the first UK Championship matches this weekend were quite predictable. The match between Stephen Maguire and Michael Holt was exciting for a while when Holt reduced 4-1 to 4-4, however, he was never really a threat to Maguire. The match finally ended 9-6.

Gerard Greene seemed to have a hard time with defending champion Shaun Murphy. For Murphy this match seemed to be a walk in the park and he calmly carried on his mission of defending the championship title, winning 9-5.

Mark King beat Anthony Hamilton to a pulp – 9-2. The match between Graeme Dott and Mark Williams ended with the same result in favour of Williams, though this was due to illness. Dott unfortunately had to withdraw at 6-2.

Steve Davis showed impressive form against Stephen Hendry and the match was quite exciting all the way until 6-6 but then Hendry suddenly found his second wind and took three consecutive frames.

Ricky Walden managed to put at least some pressure on world provisional number one John Higgins but in the end he didn’t have what it took and lost 9-7.

The match between Mark Selby and Jamie Cope was probably the most random this weekend. Cope lead 8-4 halfway through the match but Selby made an amazing comeback and won.

Neil Robertson beat Tom Ford 9-3, not very surprisingly.

Stuart Bingham’s match against Joe Perry appeared to be a breeze, ending 9-4.

Peter Ebdon beat Judd Trump 9-4 and Ryan Day almost made a maximum break but unfortunately he failed on the brown ball. He then went on to lose the match 9-3 to Liang Wenbo.

Mark Allen and Stephen Lee played an incredibly even match, chasing each other until the very last frame when Lee clinched the victory.

We’re eagerly awaiting today’s matches.