Having won their semi-finals earlier in the day, the final of this weekend’s World Series event was to be contested between world number three Shaun Murphy and crowd favourite Jimmy White. Click below to read what happened in all of today’s matches…
Well John Higgins may have won the big one in Sheffield but at the World Series it has been all Murphy as following his win in Portugal last week, he recorded a 5-3 victory this afternoon to move into this evening’s final. Just as last week the two were level at the interval but Shaun (who has also filled in by doing some interviews this week), was able to capture three of the four frames played after the break and secure the win.
In the final he would meet Jimmy White who like yesterday against Jason Devaney, completed a terrific comeback to defeat home favourite Ken Doherty 5-4 after a long scrap. Early on it looked like Doherty was cruising as he moved 4-1 in front but back came White to take a series of close frames on the colours and book his place in the final.
So could Jimmy complete another victory to secure his first title since 2004 or would Shaun come through to take his second title in a row? Sadly for Jimmy it proved to be the latter as moving 3-1 ahead at the interval with the aid of a terrific plant to the right-centre, he never really looked back and added the next two to complete a 5-1 win.
Having lost out to Higgins in the final of the World Championship at the beginning of the month, it has been a fabulous response from Shaun to win both here and in Portugal and it shows what a top player he really is these days. As an aside it is interesting how (as John Higgins himself said when he joined the Eurosport commentary team this evening), first Mark Selby a couple of years ago and now Murphy both enjoyed good records against John, but when it came down to the biggest matches, it was the Scot who was able to win through.
Overall though it seems like this latest World Series event has been a success with large crowds, improved TV coverage and some good matches along the way. Hopefully it will not be long before we hear about subsequent events in the 2009/10 World Series…