Ding Junhui thrashed Judd Trump in the semi-final's of the International Championship to take the first place in Sundays final. He will face either Stuart Bingham or Mark Selby who play in the second semi-final tomorrow in a repeat of the Shanghai Masters semi-finals, where Selby will be hoping to set up a repeat of the Shanghai and more famously the World Championship final.
This ended Trump's hopes of making it into three ranking event finals in succession, whilst keeping alive Ding's chances of adding the International title to his win in Shanghai from September and it all went downhill very early on for the Englishman.
After having a couple of chances in the first two frames but failing to get either one on the board, Trump then had to sit and watch as Ding helped himself breaks of 64 and 93 that pushed him 4-0 in front at the first mid-session interval. Following that break the Chinese number one kept the ball rolling and stormed further in front at 6-0, with Trump failing to score a point for four successive frames at this point.
Somehow, Trump picked himself up and in what could have been a crucial point of the match, he took the last two frames of the opening session with runs of 81 and 90 to get on the board and give him a glimmer of hope but still trailing at 2-6.
Those hopes became a lot fainter after the first frame in the final session when Ding stretched his lead back to five frames at 7-2, though a frame won on the final pink after chances for the Chinese in the tenth could have been crucial as Trump asked the question at 3-7. Adding to that a 70 break in the eleventh and all of a sudden the left hander had won four of the last five frames either side of the break between sessions and frame twelve became vital with Ding's lead at 7-4.
However, Ding got in early and made the most of his chances to record the best break in this last four tie with a magnificent 134 total clearance to put himself a frame away from Sunday's final with an 8-4 advantage to take into the final intermission. Only the one frame was required after the short interval as Trump's early chance went astray and Ding capitalised with the reds open to make a match clinching 72 that saw Judd Trump thumped 9-4.
You can read my thoughts on the second semi-final in my quarter-final round-up blog from Thursday which is here: http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/ding-trump-selby-and-bingham-come.html
Will it be World number 1 Selby or number 2 Bingham that faces up to the home favourite in Daqing for the final? All will soon be revealed tomorrow.
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