Shaun Murphy and Ronnie O'Sullivan are the leading players remaining at the UK Championships as the tournament enters the quarter-final stage, despite O'Sullivan being given a huge scare by Akani Songsermsawad.
Had it not been for an unfortunate shot on the green in frame ten where he potted it but also cannoned the blue and saw it fall into the pocket as well, Akani would more than likely have gone on to defeat O'Sullivan 6-4. The Thai had led 2-0 early on in the match before fantastic breaks of 121 and 98 pulled O'Sullivan level. That did not stop Akani though and he potted a superb black to move 3-2 in front and then went back two ahead at 4-2.
Again O'Sullivan took the next two to square the contest at 4-4, but the unorthodox youngster remained unfazed. His response was to pile on a magnificent 128 break and win the ninth to put himself one away from the quarter-finals at 5-4. Then came the misfortune for Akani on the green in frame ten after potting some superb balls earlier on in the frame. When the decider came O'Sullivan built up a big early lead but had not killed the frame and match off by the time Akani came back to the table. A couple of chances came and went and his snooker escape with two reds left, stuck a red for O'Sullivan who was able to complete a hard fought win.
Two days of last 16 action have seen another two top 16 seeds bow out of the competition though, most notably that of former champion John Higgins.
The Scotsman was taken down 6-5 by Mark King, who has already beaten Luca Brecel this week and will now face Murphy in the quarter-finals. King fought hard throughout the match and came back well from 4-2 and 5-4 down, especially after losing frame five from a point where Higgins needed multiple snookers. A break of 69 in the decider was King's highest of the match as he marches on.
Number six seed Mark Allen was the other top player to fall in round four, but it was an exceptional performance from Joe Perry that has sent the Northern Irishman home. Perry opened up with a nice clearance of 83 in the opening frame, and then backed that up with a fantastic 114 break to double his lead. Allen took a tight third frame, but a run of 63 from Perry in the fourth sent him into the break 3-1 in front.
Allen found his stride in the fifth with a match high break of 135 pulling a frame and he looked like levelling the match until Perry cleared with 64 to steal the sixth and lead 4-2. A cool 87 in the seventh put him one frame from victory at 5-2. However, Perry started to wobble a little and Allen took full advantage with a 134 in the eight and then 75 in the ninth to get him right back in things at 4-5. Perry had a little bit of fortune in the tenth but it helped him finally cross the line and avoid a decider as he overcame Allen 6-4.
Murphy was a comfortable winner however against Ricky Walden. Runs of 51, 55 and 114 saw the Magician take the opening three frames of the contest and surge ahead. Walden came back well in the fourth to make a break of 80 and get a frame on the board before the interval, despite the extension of his cue breaking and causing a delay halfway through the break. Walden had chances in the next couple of frames but when both went to Murphy and saw him move 5-1 in front there was really no way back for his fellow Englishman and the 2008 UK champion was soon over the line.
Seventeenth seed Ryan Day managed to fight back from 4-2 behind and put a disappointing miss in frame ten out of his mind, making a superb deciding frame break of 138 to see off the challenge of Li Hang 6-5.
Stephen Maguire had a high break of 116 as his fellow Scotsman Graeme Dott failed to live up to the heroics of the previous round and fell to a 6-2 defeat. Maguire marches on then in a week that has also seen him overcome Liang Wenbo to reach the quarter-finals.
Martin Gould finished off his match well with three straight frames to beat Xiao Guodong 6-4, featuring breaks of 66 and 69 in the final two frames to book his place in the last eight.
Mark Joyce kept his nice run going and has gone one better than at the recent International Championships to make it into the quarter-finals. He overcame Brecel and Anthony McGill that week in the best-of-11 frame matches and this week he has already taken care of David Gilbert and Neil Robertson. On this occasion he put an end to Lu Haotian's good run of form, and it was actually the Chinese youngster who was favourite with the bookies after his run in Northern Ireland a superb win over Marco Fu on Monday. Joyce though had breaks of 71, 62, 59, 59 and 55 on the way to a 6-4 triumph.
Last 16 results:
Ryan Day 6-5 Li Hang
Mark Joyce 6-4 Lu Haotian
Shaun Murphy 6-1 Ricky Walden
Mark King 6-5 John Higgins
Stephen Maguire 6-2 Graeme Dott
Joe Perry 6-4 Mark Allen
Ronnie O'Sullivan 6-5 Akani Songsermsawad
Martin Gould 6-4 Xiao Guodong
Quarter-Final draw: (Picks in bold)
Ryan Day Vs Mark Joyce
Shaun Murphy Vs Mark King
Stephen Maguire Vs Joe Perry
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Martin Gould
Despite a late finish on Thursday night, Ronnie O'Sullivan faces Martin Gould in the afternoon session on quarter-finals Friday. O'Sullivan struggled against Akani and missed many more easy balls than you would expect. He could easily have lost that, but against Gould I think he will get a style of match that he will enjoy much more. Gould has faced O'Sullivan on three occasions and is yet to pick up a win, with their latest meeting coming in the 2016 Champion of Champions quarter-finals where the Rocket ran out a 6-2 winner. Gould has played well this week and dug deep to win the final three frames against Xiao Guodong and has looked good throughout the week, so should provide another good test for O'Sullivan.
The other afternoon semi-final will see Stephen Maguire take on Joe Perry. With Championship League and the 6 Reds tournament taken out of the equation, Perry has only beaten Maguire twice in 12 previous encounters. However, only one of those 12 meetings has come inside of the last five years in which Perry has played some of his best snooker. After a quiet 2017 since making the Masters final, Perry looks to be right back to his best and has played well not just to beat Allen in the previous round but throughout the week against some in-form opposition. Maguire has also beaten some top players including Liang Wenbo and Graeme Dott, but he has not been in the latter stages of tournaments as much in recent years as he has perhaps been used to. For me, Perry's results, scoring and how confident he has looked around the table this week are hard to ignore.
Then in the evening comes Shaun Murphy against Mark King. Murphy has looked good this week as he has all season having made three finals already and winning one at the Champion of Champions in November. He played King in the first round that week in Coventry and despite an unconvincing start and some good play from King, he managed to get over the line 4-2. Aside from the Championship League that was their ninth meeting in all, and produced Murphy's eighth win so the head to head between the two is rather one sided. The 2008 champion will be taking nothing for granted though as King has already beaten Brecel and Higgins and will not be afraid of taking a third big name out of the draw here so a tight match could well be in prospect.
Finally, Ryan Day takes on Mark Joyce in what will be their eighth meeting, with Day winning six of the previous seven. Two of those have come in the best-of-11 format, in successive years at the International Championship (2014 and 2015). Day has had to come through a couple of deciders this week and has performed well under the pressure, considering as well that the "Race to the Masters" has probably been on his mind. He should be safe on that score now, and that may allow him to relax a bit more, although he has already been playing decent stuff and scoring nicely. Joyce though has taken out David Gilbert quite comfortably, overcame a heavy scoring Neil Robertson and saw off Lu Haotian who had been in great form, all results that were against the bookmakers odds. However, this will be Joyce's sixth ranking quarter-final in all and his third of the season but has failed to get beyond that stage in his career and that may have an influence on the outcome of this one.
All matches on Friday are over the best-of-11 frames format and there is still plenty of quality left in the competition despite all of the early round upsets.
No comments:
Post a Comment