The Welsh Potting Machine Mark Williams is through to the semi-finals after a 5-2 victory over Robert Milkins where he will meet the winning of the ongoing tie between Ding Junhui and Peter Ebdon…
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Mark Williams 5-2 Robert Milkins
57-66(48), 75-51, 70(70)-24, 73(73)-30, 73(40)-4, 50-78(49), 70(70c)-65(65)
Three-times Grand Prix champion (though one was technically the LG Cup), Mark Williams moved into his first semi-final in over three years tonight with a 5-2 victory over Robert Milkins.
In their second competitive meeting it was Robert who made the better start by taking the opening frame but from there it was largely one way traffic as Mark knocked in runs of 70, 73 and 40 to go just one away at 4-1. Robert did not give up and managed to reduce his arrears to 4-2 and having gone 65-0 up frame seven he could have been forgiven for thinking back to his brilliant comeback against Michael Holt in Bahrain last year.
Mark though, as he did a couple of times against Stuart Bingham in his opening match managed to hit back and take frame and match with a decisive clearance of 70.
It is good to see the Welshman playing well again after not just his poor performance against Stephen Hendry yesterday, but a lean few years in which he has struggled to make a mark in any of the ranking event tournaments on the calendar. Now knocking right on the door of the top ten, he will be hoping to draw level with John Higgins with four Grand Prix titles on Sunday afternoon…
Peter Ebdon 2-5 Ding Junhui
69(41)-53, 64-44, 8-116(107), 41(41)-81, 1-94(48,46), 39-83(47), 10-77(77)
After a slow start Chinese number one Ding Junhui hit back in style tonight to progress to his first ranking event semi-final since 2006 with a win against Peter Ebdon.
For a long time the match looked to be a close one and at 3-2 Peter pulled off a terrific shot on the black to leave him with a great chance of drawing level. Unfortunately however he somehow missed the subsequent red and a miscue on a simple black in frame seven proved to be his last action of the match as Ding punished him with a break of 77.
As I have said a few times now, I really like the look of Ding at the moment and though he will remain a relative outsider compared to the likes of Higgins and Robertson, I just have a feeling that it might be Ding who will go all the way…time will tell.