Williams shows his mettle to send Carter crashing out



LONDON // Despite suffering whiplash injuries to his neck in a minor car crash the previous day, Mark Williams showed courage to complete a 6-3 victory over England's Ali Carter and reach the quarter-finals of the Pokerstars.com Masters at Wembley Arena. Williams took the opening frame with a quality break of 98. Carter, who reached the quarter-finals last year before losing to the eventual champion, Ronnie O'Sullivan, bounced back to take the next two, but from there on the Welshman, who won the Masters in 1998 and 2003, dominated winning five of the remaining six frames. It represented a return to form for the 34-year-old and a first quarter-final appearance at Wembley since 2006. He now faces Shaun Murphy tonight.

"I surprised myself, I didn't expect that and felt good out there. I couldn't rush any shots because of the pain. That was probably some of the best stuff I have played for sometime," said Williams. "I'll try to get a massage before facing Shaun and hopefully the neck should feel a lot better. The pain was bearable, but it got worse when the tension started to build." The defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan came out on top against Neil Robertson, winning 6-4 in an outstanding contest which featured four centuries and five more breaks over 50.

The Australian Robertson looked in control when he took the first three frames, but O'Sullivan stormed back to win six of the next seven to boost his chances of a fifth Wembley title. "I'd give my long potting just two out of 10 so it's hard to get excited," said O'Sullivan. "To make two or three centuries in a match is not a big deal as that's how the modern game is. I'm not the player I was when I was 15 or 16.

"A lot of the time I'm playing sub-standard shots. Now and then I catch hold of one and play a killer shot. The only time I play a pure shot is left handed. The last time I played a good tournament was the [2003] European Open in Torquay and the Irish Masters a couple of weeks later. "I don't want to have to rely on the occasion of being 3-0 down in front of a big crowd to salvage some pride and give myself a kick up the backside. I can't pot a ball in practice. My attitude will be the same in my next match [against Peter Ebdon] I won't be surprised if I win or lose."

@Email:sports@thenational.ae

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Airev
Started: September 2023
Founder: Muhammad Khalid
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: Generative AI
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
 
Company%20Profile
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From Zero

Artist: Linkin Park

Label: Warner Records

Number of tracks: 11

Rating: 4/5

Electoral College Victory

Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate. 

 

Popular Vote Tally

The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher:  Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5

Singham Again

Director: Rohit Shetty

Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone

Rating: 3/5

THE NEW BATCH'S FOCUS SECTORS

AiFlux – renewables, oil and gas

DevisionX – manufacturing

Event Gates – security and manufacturing

Farmdar – agriculture

Farmin – smart cities

Greener Crop – agriculture

Ipera.ai – space digitisation

Lune Technologies – fibre-optics

Monak – delivery

NutzenTech – environment

Nybl – machine learning

Occicor – shelf management

Olymon Solutions – smart automation

Pivony – user-generated data

PowerDev – energy big data

Sav – finance

Searover – renewables

Swftbox – delivery

Trade Capital Partners – FinTech

Valorafutbol – sports and entertainment

Workfam – employee engagement

COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Alaan%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202021%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Parthi%20Duraisamy%20and%20Karun%20Kurien%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20FinTech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%247%20million%20raised%20in%20total%20%E2%80%94%20%242.5%20million%20in%20a%20seed%20round%20and%20%244.5%20million%20in%20a%20pre-series%20A%20round%3Cbr%3E%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
  • Riders must be 14-years-old or over
  • Wear a protective helmet
  • Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
  • Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
  • Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
  • Do not drive outside designated lanes

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