Good Friday today saw the conclusion of the quarter-finals of the China Open as four of the world’s top five ranked players on the latest projected seedings list advanced to the semi-finals in Beijing.
Click below for a round-up of all of the action, as well as the latest updated provisional drawsheet for the 2013 World Championship…
- Click here to view the updated tournament drawsheet
- Click here to view the latest projected seedings
First man through to the last four this morning was Mark Selby, who confirmed that he will return to the top of the world rankings for the third time in his career after this tournament, with a 5-1 victory against Mark Williams.
Having split the opening two frames, Selby then moved 2-1 ahead, before adding the fourth before the interval with an decisive clearance of 64. From there Williams could not recover and Selby would finish with a break of 72 to reach his first semi-final since the Masters in January.
There he will face friend Shaun Murphy in a repeat of this season’s UK Championship final, after the Magician recovered from 4-2 down, to end the run of young Jack Lisowski in the day’s opening session.
Level at 2-2 following a high-quality opening to the match, which saw Lisowski hit breaks of 62 and 71, either side of a brilliant 137 from Murphy, it was Jack who looked to seize the initiative, taking the next two frames after the break to move just one away from his first semi-final.
It has though been a season characterised by comebacks from Murphy and today he was to produce another, breaks of 41 and 36 in the decider enough to clinch victory.
Jack can be forgiven for being disappointed, but overall it has been a terrific week for the youngster and an experience that will no doubt prove invaluable as he looks to continue his progression in the professional game. Like his friend and former flatmate before him Judd Trump, there has never been any doubt as to whether Jack has the talent to succeed, it is just a matter of gaining experience and piecing everything together, which will inevitably take time.
On the subject of time, the quarter-final between Neil Robertson and Marcus Campbell later in the day also required a fair bit of time, though eventually following a pivotal fifth frame, it was the higher-ranked Australian who moved into the semi-finals.
It has been a strange season for Robertson, a player who has come close to winning several titles, without quite managing to take one. Indeed, that he has not won a full-ranking event title since the 2010 World Open is a fact that is increasingly being referenced when talking about Neil Robertson and he will be hoping to end that run prior to the upcoming World Championship.
If he is to do so, then he will have to overcome the challenge posed by Stephen Maguire in the semi-finals, after the Scot ran out a 5-1 winner against an out-of-sorts Stuart Bingham this afternoon. Having seen Maguire the the opening three frames of the match, there were signs that the momentum was beginning to shift, as Stuart closed to 1-3 before finding himself in with a scoring chance in frame five.
That shift was to prove short-lived however, a missed black from Maguire all but marking the end of Bingham’s challenge. It was far from a vintage performance from Stephen as he admitted post-match, but so long as he remains in the tournament, last season’s Beijing runner-up will have his sights on going one better in 2013.
The World Championship Draw
Following the quarter-finals, the potential drawsheet for the Crucible now looks like this:
O’Sullivan (1) v Carter (16)
Bingham (9) v Higgins (8)
Murphy (5) v Dott (12)
Stevens (13) v Robertson (4)
Trump (3) v Walden (14)
Williams (11) v Maguire (6)
Allen (7) v Ding (10)
Hawkins (15) v Selby (2)
With the numbers now being whittled down in Beijing, the Crucible drawsheet is now very much starting to take place, with Mark Selby today confirming that he will head into the tournament as its second seed, while all of the lower seedings have now been confirmed.
Today’s changes saw both Shaun Murphy and Stephen Maguire leapfrog Mark Allen in the latest projected seedings, meaning that Mark is now set to face Ding Junhui in the last 16, if both are able to come through their openers in Sheffield.
Looking forward to the weekend, there are in fact only two more changes that can now happen in respect of the Crucible draw. The first is that victory for Neil Robertson on Sunday afternoon would be enough to see him usurp Judd Trump for second place in the world rankings, which would see the pair switch seedings for the World Championship.
The second, is that if Stephen Maguire can go further in the tournament than Shaun Murphy, the two will also switch places in both the rankings and the drawsheet.
Finally, Jack Lisowski’s defeat today also confirmed that Fergal O’Brien will retain a top 32 seeding for the World Championship, meaning that he will have to win just one qualifying match to make it through to the Crucible.