Ding Junhui was the first man to book a place in Saturday's Champion of Champions semi-finals after he beat Barry Hawkins 6-5 in the group semi-final in a cracking match last night. Earlier in the day Ding Junhui played first and beat Dominic Dale in a tough match 4-2, while Barry Hawkins played very well in sending John Higgins home 4-1. Ding wasn't at his best today but hopefully for him, 4 full days off ahead of the semi-finals should allow him to get some heavy practice in for the last 4 and bring him in well prepared.
This is what happened yesterday in a little more detail:
Group 4 semi-finals:
Ding Junhui 4-2 Dominic Dale - Ding Junhui started the match off pretty well, with a break of 52 helping him to the opening frame, while he soon doubled his lead as Dominic struggled to settle and only scored 2 points in frames 2 and 3, with Ding Junhui taking an early 3-0 lead thanks to a break of 77 in the third. The Chinaman made a break of 54 in the fourth frame and had a chance to seal the match and a whitewash but a break of 58 from Dale kept him in the match. Dominic then took another tight frame in the fifth, while he had another chance to counter in frame six before missing a tricky pink, and leaving Ding in for the few pots he needed to get past the winning post and into the group finals that evening.
Barry Hawkins 4-1 John Higgins - Barry Hawkins was pretty rampant in his match with John Higgins, romping home to a comfortable 4-1 victory in no time at all. Barry started the match off with a good break of 75 to take the opening frame. John dominated the next frame with Hawkins only scoring 8 points as the Scot levelled the match at 1-1. From there though Higgins wasn't really in it as Hawkins reeled off breaks of 57 and 73 in the next two frames to put him one away from victory at 3-1, and then a break of 58 in the fifth frame was enough to see Barry Hawkins home and into the group final to play Ding Junhui just a couple of hours afterwards.
Group 4 Final:
Ding Junhui 6-5 Barry Hawkins - This match had plenty of twists and turns between Ding Junhui and Barry Hawkins, but Hawkins couldn't get revenge for his group semi-final defeat to the Chinaman in the first running of this event last year. Ding dominated the early stages of the match taking the opening couple of frames for a 2-0 lead, thanks in part to a break of 65 as Hawkins only scored 13 points in the first two frames. Barry pulled one back in the third frame, but Ding Junhui soon restored his two frame advantage ahead of the mid-session interval thanks to a brilliant break of 105 putting him 3-1 up at the break. The first frame after the mid-session break was a very scrappy one but when Ding Junhui won it to go 4-1 in front and just two frames from the semi-finals you wondered what Hawkins had left in him for the rest of the match. The answer was plenty as Ding Junhui only scored 21 points in the next three frames as Barry levelled the match up at 4-4 thanks to runs of 70 in frame six and 80 in frame seven. With the match now down to a best-of-3 things were getting tense and it showed as the key ninth frame was a very lengthy one that went really quite scrappy, but Ding got an early lead in the frame and from there he was able to keep Hawkins at bay to put himself 5-4 ahead with 2 bites of the cherry for the victory. The response of the left-hander was emphatic as he made a nice century of 112 (the highest break of the day) to force the decider that the match deserved after such a valiant fight back from Barry. Unfortunately for Hawkins, he didn't have a chance in the decider before Ding had already left him needing snookers thanks mainly to a well played break of 55, and it was the Chinaman that was into the semi-finals with a hard fought 6-5 win.
Today we're on to group 2 of the Champion of Champions as Mark Selby takes on Steve Davis, before Judd Trump plays Stephen Maguire in the best-of-7 frame group semi-finals, before the two winners of those games face off in the evening in the best-of-11 group final. If you want to read my preview of that group and any of the other groups, my full Champion of Champions Preview is here:
cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/champion-of-champions-preview.html
I'll be back at the same time tomorrow to round off that group in full, and I hope you all enjoy another entertaining day of snooker.
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