The Shanghai Masters are in full swing and Ken Doherty began the tournament with confidence in his game. Doherty played well when the tournament started and earned a victory of 5-0 over Aditya Mehta of India in the wild card playoff.

Doherty had dropped to a rank of 55th on the provisional world list after a slump but now is fighting to gain a higher rank. The win will certainly help. Doherty commented: “I’ve got my tail up at the moment and my confidence is definitely coming back.”

Doherty won a Pro Challenge satellite event last week and then faced Mehta with breaks of 63 and 129. Doherty will now face Neil Robertson of Australia who is the number 10 seed. It will be interesting to see if Doherty’s confidence will carry over to this match against Robertson. If he remains confident in his game he should go far, but the tougher the competition the harder it can be to maintain confidence.






- 2009-09-08