Hossein Vafei has beaten defending China Open champion Judd Trump 5-3 in the quarter-finals to move into the last four and complete his best ever ranking event performance, and there could yet be more to come.
The win also moves Hossein into the top 64 on the provisional end of season rankings, meaning that he would stay on tour without having to go back to £0 and start afresh with a new two year card, if he can stay out. The Iranian made two centuries, one in frame four to lead 3-1 and the other in frame seven to re-take the lead at 4-3, after Trump had pegged him back.
Home favourite Ding Junhui was also shown the exit as Kyren Wilson took him apart 5-1. Wilson won four frames in a row from 1-1 to complete victory, with the key frame seemingly being the fifth following the interval. A very nice clearance from Wilson saw him steal it on the black, to stop Ding getting back to 2-3 and instead move 4-1 ahead, a massive difference over the best-of-9 frames.
Wilson will now take on the world champion Mark Selby, as he ended Stephen Maguire's hopes of returning to the top 16 and qualifying automatically for the world championships. Maguire needed to win the tournament, and a victory here would have been massive to achieving that but it was not to be for the Scot who did have his fair share of chances. Big chances in frame two and frame three came and went, and Maguire could and probably should have won both of them but having also lost the opener, found himself 3-0 adrift. Maguire just about managed to hang on and take the fourth to get on the board, but breaks of 76 and 72 after the break from Selby were enough to seal a 5-1 win.
The final man that can steal the 16th automatic Crucible qualification spot from Ryan Day is fellow Welshman Mark Williams. The two time world champion came back from 4-1 down yesterday against John Higgins to keep his hopes alive, and today he strengthened those hopes with a 5-1 win against Shaun Murphy. Murphy took the opener, and looked in control in the second until missing a relatively simple red. Despite it being early in the match that may have proved to be the turning point as Williams won that frame and then stole the next on the black. He took control by dominating the fourth to lead 3-1 at the break, and Murphy could not muster a comeback on this occasion as Williams controlled frame five and completed victory with the help of a 52 break in the sixth.
Semi-Finals Draw:
Mark Williams Vs Hossein Vafei
Mark Selby Vs Kyren Wilson
Hossein Vafei has been the surprise package of the week, getting to his first semi-final and beating Joe Perry and Judd Trump along the way. In the process he has climbed into the top 64 which is a great effort considering how unlikely that has looked at times for him. He has played very well and seems to score heavily every time I see him. By no means is this going to be an easy ride for Mark Williams over the best-of-11 frames, just because it is the Iranian's first major semi-final.
Mark Williams will be desperate to win the event now, having made it this far. Taking the title would mean he avoids having to go to Ponds Forge and would steal the sixteenth automatic Crucible seeding but that is still far from easy from here. The stats would show that he has still not been scoring heavily, in fact his highest break (and only break above 50) against Shaun Murphy was a 52 in the final frame. Hossein seemed unfazed playing on the TV against Trump and showed what it meant to beat him at the end with a big celebration. If he can come back down from that win then there is no reason why he could not add Williams to his list of scalps.
In the second semi-final, Kyren Wilson has gone relatively under the radar to this point, having only been on TV once but he has found his form at the right time. Convincing wins over Stuart Bingham and Ding Junhui in the last two rounds will certainly give him a lot of confidence to take on Selby. Wilson's only ranking title has come in China, while his only other ranking final was against Anthony McGill in India this season, so he clearly enjoys playing in Asia. The only time he and Selby have played since that breakthrough win in Shanghai, was at last years world championships in the quarter-finals, where Selby won 13-8. Selby got off to a flying start in that game, and to avoid defeat over a much shorter format by comparison, Wilson cannot let that happen again.
Mark Selby has gone about his business pretty well this week. Important steals against Maguire today made that a much easier afternoon than it might have been. He was able to scrap over the line against Andrew Higginson in the last 16 when he could not repeat the heavy scoring form of his first two or three matches against easier option. A top player is yet to stand up to him this week, it could have been Maguire today, but I am sure Wilson will give him a much closer game having showed the abundance of confidence and big match nerve that he has in the past 18 months or so.
It is very much an exciting end to the week with plenty of big stories, and one not to be missed.
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