John Higgins today saw his run of six successive ranking event semi-finals come to an end with defeating to the resurgent Welshman Mark Williams while Peter Ebdon bounced back from watching Neil Robertson make his first career 147 to book his last eight place…
Note that both my provisional and one-year rankings pages have now been updated.
Results from Global Snooker:
Match 20 – Mark Allen 5-3 Stephen Maguire
0-94(52), 66(63)-30, 59(44)-17, 54-53, 74(63)-22, 53-64(64), 8-95(64), 88(60)-25
Match 21 – Tian Pengfei 3-5 Mark King
1-64(57), 44-66(58), 85(46)-20, 75(51)-57(57), 7-79(42), 69-38, 4-91(91), 27-61(43)
Match 22 – Joe Perry 3-5 Allister Carter
42-47, 49-83(62), 99(99)-22, 33-66(48), 66-20, 51-24, 1-79(79), 4-71(70)
Match 23 – Nigel Bond 3-5 Marco Fu
70-1, 63-25, 74(74)-0, 1-82(71), 48-64(42), 37-88, 39(39)-64, 5-96(54)
Match 17 – Peter Ebdon 5-1 Neil Robertson
68(68)-26, 0-147(147), 84(66)-0, 63-22, 69(42)-25, 70(33,33)-52(52)
Match 18 – Ding Junhui 5-3 Mark Selby
126(126)-0, 61(56)-0, 13-101(101), 3-116(116), 101(101)-0, 82(49)-18, 50(50)-66(66), 71-8
Match 19 – Ryan Day 0-5 Stephen Hendry
37-66(43), 49-63, 2-92(76), 16-68(68), 4-73(43)
Match 24 – Mark Williams 5-2 John Higgins
73(73)-38(38), 113(81)-9, 48(48)-67(67), 76-55(40), 4-98(93), 109(108)-0, 64(40)-1
Prior to the start of the tournament I had predicted that Mark Williams would come away with the title this week and he kept those hopes alive today with a very creditable 5-2 victory over Scotland’s John Higgins. Whether John was affected or not by Ronnie’s exit yesterday which ensured that Higgins will not be caught at the top of the rankings regardless of what happens during the remainder of the season I don’t know but I’m sure that Mark will not be complaining!
It was not such a good day for another Welshman, Ryan Day who found himself on the wrong end of a 5-0 whitewash against seven-times world champion Stephen Hendry. Having defeated the Scot for the first time during the recent Welsh Open I expect that Ryan was feeling fairly confident heading into this match but Hendry has looked better since his change of cue at the turn of the year and recorded easily his best win of the season to end his run of four straight last 16 exits.
Another man through to the last eight of a ranking event for the first time this season was Mark King, who came through against Tian Pengfei with a 5-3 victory. King has received criticism in some quarters for his failure to make a significant impact at ranking events recently but his consistency during the opening matches has been as good as anyone’s and deserves to be rewarded.
Also through is Marco Fu, a man in a rich vein of form after his Championship League victory last week. His latest victim was Nigel Bond who could not repeat his heroics from yesterday and will now end the season ranked outside of the top 32 for the first time since 2004/5 as a result.
Mark Allen, the man who Fu defeated in the final of the Championship League, enjoyed an excellent 5-3 victory over Stephen Maguire today to book his place in a third ranking event quarter-final of the season. Having lost out in such agonising circumstances to Marco, I had feared that Allen may have suffered something of a hangover this week but he has proved me wrong and could now be a real dark horse for his first ranking event title.
Finally, both Ali Carter and Ding Junhui also managed to progress to the quarter-finals, the former moving up to third in the provisional rankings as a result…