Xiao Guodong 6-3 Michael Holt - Xiao Guodong won the first semi-final with what turned into a comfortable victory over Michael Holt. After the first 2 scrappy frames were shared, Xiao settled into the match, taking a 2-1 lead with a good break of 64. He then doubled this lead before the mid-session break with a break of 96 to punish a mistake by Holt and take the 3-1 lead. Holt fought back hard after the break, settling into the match with a magnificent break of 113 to reduce the deficit to 3-2, before squaring the scores once more with the help with an early 65 in frame 6. From here though Xiao took complete control of the match, firstly with a fantastic 111 to regain him the lead. He then won the next to move 5-3 ahead after Holt battled long and hard for snookers on the colours, but failed in his attempts to get them. Finally, Guodong finished the match in true style, with the highest break of the match, a 127 to book his lucrative place in the Shanghai Masters final.
Ding Junhui 6-2 Barry Hawkins - Ding Junhui book his place in tomorrows final, with a relatively simple win over Barry Hawkins. The first frame was quite long and tactical, but after Ding won it, it obviously boosted him, and helped him along to dominating the second for a 2-0 lead. Barry Hawkins had the best of the next frame and reduced Ding's advantage to 2-1. Ding soon regained that cushion though, take the fourth frame convincingly for a 3-1 interval advantage. Ding then came back out and took the fifth with the help of a 53 break to open up a 4-1 lead. Hawkins got back into in the next though, with the match high break of 90, clawing Ding back to 4-2. But, as was the pattern of the match, as soon as Hawkins came back at Ding, the Chinaman responded with a break of 68 break to go further in front, one away from the final at 5-2. In the eighth frame, Ding put the final nail in Barry's coffin, taking a drawn out frame to book his final place, with a comfortable 6-2 victory.
Final Predictions:
Ding Junhui Vs Xiao Guodong - Both players have been playing really well this week, to set up an all Chinese ranking final, and it should be a really good contest with both players making big breaks and scoring well. It very much has the feel of the Chinese master, and China's no.1 against one of China's up and coming apprentices. With Ding being the much more experienced campaigner, while Xiao is only in his first ranking final, you have to say that Ding will be much fancied for his maiden Shanghai Masters title. Of course though, Xiao has gone through against the odds many times already in this tournament though, and there's no reason why he couldn't do it once more to take the title, if he plays well once more. However, I still think that Ding will make a fairly comfortable win, having looked like he was up for the job all week.Prediction: 10-6 win for Ding to take the title.
Whoever the winner is tomorrow, snooker is the real winner, with an all Chinese final surely creating ever more interest in China, with the country having another good player to cheer upon and pin their hopes to for tournament wins. After the week snooker has had, I don't think anyone could argue that this is a good final for the tournament, and one that snooker will benefit from and create some better headlines for the sport. Hopefully tomorrow i'll be reporting on a quality climax to the week's events.
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