Gilbert reaches Championship League final group stage, but Murphy title defence ends

David Gilbert loved three straight wins to achieve the ultimate group stage of the Championship League with a powerful victory in topping Group B in Leicester.

The previous Championship League winner loved wins over Ashley Carty (3-1), He Guoqiang (3-1) and Stuart Bingham (3-0) to e-book a return journey to the venue subsequent week.

Gilbert completed 5 factors away from 2015 world champion Bingham together with his prime break of 132 coming in victory over He as he reached the final eight of the primary rating occasion of the marketing campaign in some model.

He was joined within the subsequent part by Group C winner Lengthy Zehuang, who recovered from a gap 3-1 loss to defending champion Shaun Murphy to qualify with spectacular 3-0 wins over Hossein Vafaei and Jamie Jones.

Murphy wanted to beat Vafaei in his last match to progress, however misplaced 3-0 as Lengthy topped the group on body distinction.

Jack Lisowski and Ali Carter are in motion in Group E on Saturday alongside Wu Yize, with Neil Robertson withdrawing from the occasion.

Stage one consisted of 32 teams of 4 gamers. The eight group winners contest an additional two teams with the winners assembly within the last.

There may be £33,000 on the desk for the winner plus a spot within the Champion of Champions later within the 12 months which is price one other £12,500 for qualifying.

• Group B: David Gilbert (ENG)
• Group C: Lengthy Zehuang (CHN)

• Group 21: Neil Robertson (AUS)
• Group 11: Ryan Day (WAL)
• Group 4: Mark Williams (WAL)
• Group 17: Chris Wakelin (ENG)
• Group 25: Matthew Stevens (WAL)
• Group 31: Ashley Carty (ENG)
• Group 23: Michael White (WAL)
• Group 22: Joe O’Connor (ENG)
• Group 10: Jackson Web page (WAL)
• Group 32: Thepchaiya Un-Nooh (THA)
• Group 30: Jamie Jones (WAL)
• Group 29: Ben Woollaston (ENG)
• Group 8: Jak Jones (WAL)
• Group 7: Robbie McGuigan (NI)
• Group 24: Martin O’Donnell (Eng)
• Group 28: Wu Yize (CHN)
• Group 26: Alexander Ursenbacher (SUI)
• Group 27: David Lilley (ENG)
• Group 1: Scott Donaldson (SCO)
• Group 14: Hossein Vafaei (IRN)
• Group 18: Stuart Bingham (ENG)
• Group 13: Si Jiahui (CHN)
• Group 20: Stuart Carrington (ENG)
• Group 19: Lengthy Zehuang (CHN)
• Group 6: Gary Wilson (ENG)
• Group 9: Ma Hailong (CHN)
• Group 2: He Guoqiang (CHN)
• Group 12: Jack Lisowski (ENG)
• Group 5: Ali Carter (ENG)
• Group 16: Fan Zhengyi (CHN)
• Group 3: Shaun Murphy (ENG)
• Group 15: David Gilbert (ENG)