World Snooker Championship Day 14: Ronnie O'Sullivan and Ali Carter lead their opponents in the semi-finals, hopefully the 2008 World Final will be repeated.
Rocket O'Sullivan
Leading 5-3 before the second session, O'Sullivan struggled at the beginning. Matthew Stevens took the opening two frames of the session to level 5-5 after stunning 63 clearance to steal the frame from Ronnie's hands. The Rocket played better, 62 and a ton put him 7-5 ahead of Stevens at the mid interval.
Ronnie found his form, winning another four in a row (total six a row this session) with runs of 98, 94 and a ton. The Essex cueman had an clear advantage over Stevens, 11-5 with two more session to go tomorrow. He could kill off the match tomorrow morning if he win six out of eight frames to be played during the third session.
I believe many Rocket fans may found an interesting pattern - O'Sullivan played his best snooker during the second session of the match. He took six consecutive frames during second session in the four matches he have played in the championship so far. What a weapon to win a match.
Captain Carter flying high in the sky
Carter extended his lead to 14-10 after the first two sessions. Carter dominated the match, 5-3 and 10-6. He won most of the tight frames on colours, even down to the final black. The standard of the match is higher today, Carter made breaks of 118, 134, 73 to lead 14-7. However, Maguire took the final three frames of third session to ensure Carter would not have a session to spare tomorrow.
Carter v Maguire will finish at 2.30pm and winner of O'Sullivan v Stevens will be determined at 7pm.
World Snooker Championship Day 12: Ronnie
O’Sullivan, Stephen Maguire, Ali Carter and Matthew Stevens are the four
players who advanced to semi-finals.
O'Sullivan saw off Robertson to make semi-finals
The Rocket trailed Neil Robertson by 3-5
after the first session. The three-time World Champion had a brilliant
performance in the second session, taking six frames in a row to lead Robertson
by 9-5 with a few quality breaks. Despite struggling at the afternoon, the 2010
World Champion claimed last two frames of the session to trail 7-9 before final
session kicked off.
Ronnie had a healthy lead 12-8 over Robertson
with runs of 100 and 104 but Robertson swung back to trail 10-12 with 89 and
77. Ronnie killed the match with 59 in the frame 23 to beat Robertson by 13-10.
Poor afternoon session cost Robertson the match
Following his victory, the 36 year-old
said: "It's nice to enjoy the game, and to play with openness which is my
natural game. Robertson said, "I played too slowly in the afternoon - I
just couldn't get going, I couldn't get any rhythm. On his opponent, O'Sullivan
added: "Neil's had a great tournament, he's been fantastic and he's had
another good season."
This is the first Crucible semi-finals
since 2008 for The Rocket. He will play Matthew Stevens who beaten Ryan Day by
13-5, winning 10 straight frames to enter the semi-finals. Stevens, who will now play either Ronnie
O'Sullivan or Neil Robertson, said: "I'd be lying if I said that I thought
I'd get back here - to the semi-finals of the World
Championship.'' "It would mean everything to win it, but I feel I'm
going to have to improve if I'm going to go any further.''
Ali Carter came through tests from
Jamie Jones with scoreline of 13-11 to advance to semi-finals. Carter led Jones
by 9-7 in the previous session, he made a good start to be 12-8 up on Jones.
The Crucible debutant took the following three frames. The pressure is now on
The Captain's shoulder. Carter who overcame Trump in the last round held his
nerve to win with a break of 73.
Jamie Jones & Ali Carter
"What
an incredible performance [from Jamie] to get through to a quarter-final and
make so many century breaks, he's an awesome player, gutsy as you like. He
reminds me of Graeme Dott, always there on your heels and it was only my safety
that won me the match." Jone said, "I'm so at home out there I
can't really explain it, I've loved being here, it's been the best experience
of my life.
Stephen
Maguire saw off Stephen Hendry yesterday by 13-2 and therefore he got a session
to spare today. Tomorrow will be down to one table set-up, with Maguire versus
Carter and O'Sullivan versus Stevens.
Stephen Hendry made the announcement of retiring from the game at the press conference of his quarter-finals defeat. He lost to Stephen Maguire by 2-13. His decision shocked everybody.
The Legend Stephen Hendry
The seven-time
World Champion has beaten Stuart Bingham and the Defending Champion John
Higgins to reach the quarter-finals. I believe Hendry had not regret as he made
his eleventh maximum break in the first round, to level off Ronnie O'Sullivan's
record of making the most 147s.
Hendry said in his press conference:
"I made the decision about three months ago, I didn't tell many
people, I only told two or three people but this is me
finished in tournament snooker. It was quite an easy decision, there's a few
reasons which I'm not going to go into in detail and bore you with. The
schedule didn't help, the fact that I'm not playing the snooker I want to play
doesn't help, the fact I don't enjoy practice doesn't help. I've got other
things I want to do, I've got a lot of commitments now in China which I've
signed up for and I can't do both, I can't do that and play snooker, because I
would never be at home, so the time is right for me.
"If I'd have
won this event, it would have been an even better way to go out. I'm delighted
that I've made a maximum here, that's why I was more animated than normal when
making it, I was delighted to do it on my last appearance here. It wasn't a
spur of the moment thing, I thought about it last year, but 2 or 3 months ago I
decided enough was enough.
After dropping
out of the Top 16 this season, Hendry seemed to play better snooker compared to
the previous season. Making a maximum at the Crucible, his last tournament to
be played in the professional circuit is the best ending of his career.
Although Hendry had not won a full ranking title since 2005 Malta Cup, he
had archived more than everybody had won so far in the game.
Being one of the greatest player
ever in the sport, I wish Hendry all the best in the future. Thank you for all
your brilliant matches and magic moments that brought to us in these 26 years.
