Day three from Berlin as the line up for the quarter finals is decided and Northern Ireland’s Joe Swail has pulled off another shock by defeating my tip for the tournament Shaun Murphy at the last 16 stage. Click below for news on that and the other results so far tonight…
Friday Results So Far:
Last 16:
Graeme Dott 5-2 Anthony Hamilton
Ding Junhui 5-2 Peter Ebdon
Joe Swail 5-2 Shaun Murphy
Mark Selby 5-3 Stephen Hendry
Last 32:
Stephen Maguire 5-2 Daniel Wells
Mark Williams 5-1 Anthony McGill
Marco Fu 5-1 Mark King
John Higgins 5-3 Robert Milkins
As stated yesterday, Joe Swail has come into this event with little in the way of form but that has not stopped him from performing here, first defeating Mark Allen and now sending home former world champion Shaun Murphy at the last 16 stage. It was a reasonable start for Murphy but from there he lost four frames on the spin, a break of 70 in frame two the highlight on his way to a 4-1 lead. Shaun kept himself in the match with runs of 38 and 25 in the next frame but it was too little too late as Swail wrapped up an impressive victory in frame seven.
Next up in the quarter-finals for him will be Marco Fu who produced a fine performance to down Mark King 5-1 this morning before unfortunately receiving a walkover in his next match against John Higgins following the Scot’s decision to withdraw following the death of his father today (see separate article soon). Regardless of the circumstances, it has been an important day for Marco as he has risen from 21st place to 17th in the projected seedings list, giving himself a real chance of moving back into the top 16 following the next revision.
Elsewhere it was largely a day for the favourites, Mark Williams and Stephen Maguire both winning against lower ranked opposition to make it to the last 16 while Ding Junhui marched on with a 5-2 victory against Peter Ebdon. Mark Selby meanwhile raced to a 3-1 lead against Stephen Hendry with a pot success rate of 99%, before eventually taking a 5-3 win.