Stephen Maguire booked his place in the top 16 as a seeded player for the World Championships after making it through to the last four of the China Open. He knew coming into his quarter final match with Alfie Burden, who was in his first ranking event quarter final, that he needed to win this match to leapfrog Ding Junhui and send the Chinaman into World Championship qualifiers at Ponds Forge. Today was nonetheless Ding's birthday, probably the worst one he's had.
With the pressure now off Maguire can relax in his semi-final with Judd Trump who had to battle hard in his match with Mark King. King took advantage of missed chances from Trump to take a 3-2 but could not keep taking advantage as Trump then went 4-3 ahead and managed a tight frame eight on the blue to clinch victory.
Earlier on in the day the opening semi-final was decided as Ricky Walden thrashed World Champion Stuart Bingham 5-1 to make it into consecutive ranking event semi's.
Meanwhile John Higgins kept up his quest for a third ranking event of the season by eventually coming through his match with Thailand's Noppon Saengkham. Noppon had his chances in three of the opening four frames but found himself 4-0 behind at the interval. Noppon then won the next three frames with some good breaks and had a chance to steal the eighth frame but missed a green with all of the balls open and Higgins did the rest to complete a 5-3 win.
Quarter-Final Results:
Stephen Maguire 5-1 Alfie Burden
Judd Trump 5-3 Mark King
John Higgins 5-3 Noppon Saengkham
Ricky Walden 5-1 Stuart Bingham
Judd Trump 5-3 Mark King
John Higgins 5-3 Noppon Saengkham
Ricky Walden 5-1 Stuart Bingham
Semi-final Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Judd Trump Vs Stephen Maguire
John Higgins Vs Ricky Walden
John Higgins Vs Ricky Walden
Stephen Maguire has the pressure off of him a little bit now having done what he has had to, in order to make it to the World Championships as a seed and his record with Judd Trump is a decent one, and the pair always seem to have close matches against each other. Trump will have to find the form he showed earlier on in the week to win this one.
Meanwhile, Ricky Walden seems to have continued his form on from the Players Championship finals and will be relishing the chance to win yet another ranking event in China and win the only long standing Chinese event that is missing from his CV. Higgins meanwhile is after his third ranking title of the season, and second of the season in China though he has not yet had to play a top 16 player this week, despite having big challenges from Gilbert and Noppon in the last couple of rounds. I think this match may come down to Walden keeping up his heavy scoring form.
A couple of brilliant semi-finals in store then as the tournament moves on to the best-of 11 frames for the Last 4 and then the best-of 19 frames for Sunday's finale. Now of course we know of all of the players that will have to go to Ponds Forge for the World Championship qualifiers after Stephen Maguire's victory today. The draw for qualifying will be completed on Monday and should be live streamed according to a tweet from World Snooker today. I will then of course attempt to predict the outcome of every first round qualifying match and the 16 players that will get through to the Crucible in my Qualifying preview ahead of Wednesday's start.
Michael, I enjoy your blog. I heard about it when Fouldsy mentioned it during commentary.
ReplyDeletePlease accept this gentle note. In many parts of the world, including the US, "Chinaman" is considered a racial slur, as offensive as "N****r."
I am not offended because I understand that you did not mean it in that sense, but you should know not everyone will see it the way I do.
Keep on writing. Because I'm in the States (near San Francisco), I thirst for snooker news. Unfortunately I just learned I will be working during the last week of the Championship and will only be able to see the third and fourth session of the Final live.