By elliott west
With Shaun Murphy being the latest casualty in this year’s tournament the field is starting to thin out out as we reach the half way stage of the World Open.
Graeme Dott continued where he left off and Murphy in his match with John Higgins started strongly, knocking in two breaks of 104 and 80 to lead the match, 2-0. However the Scot was having none of it and replied with two breaks of 71 and 99 to even up the match at 2-2. The game then ran close and in the end went to a decider which Higgins was triumphant and knocked out his good friend, 5-4.
With this win the floodgates of success seemed to open and Mark Selby became another victim of this Chinese competition as Stuart Bingham produced a vintage display of snooker. Bingham now dubbed the “century machine” knocked in breaks of 108, 97, 114, 104 and 117 to dispatch Selby 5-2! A great display by the former World Champion and a bitter pill for Mark to swallow after winning the English Open.
These seismic shock waves continued to pulsate throughout the day with Thepchaiya Un-Nooh winning his match against Songsermsawad, 5-3 and Mark Allen fell foul to the rising star David Gilbert who is never afraid to take on any player. Gilbert showed his class in this match and put a very difficult opponent to bed. The 5-3 score line shows how close it went but in the end Gilbert proved that he was the better player on the day. So it continued with Kyren Wilson saying goodnight to Jack Lisowski with an impressive 5-1 win and a beleaguered Ding Junhui exited stage left after Michael Holt put Ding out of the event with a 5-1 win. This is the first time Holt has reached a quarter-finals stage since the Snooker Shootout.
The match between Ali Carter looked liked it would go to the wire as he played Zhao Yuelong. Carter responded to breaks of 131 and 134 with his own of 141, in what was a match of big breaks. In the end though Carter could only muster up two frames and his opponent just started to motor, leaving Ali left staring into thin air as his Chinese opponent won the match, 5-2.
The best was left for last though as Joe Perry met Judd Trump. Perry has shown little form over the last year and you would have expected this match to have all gone Trump’s way. However this wasn’t to be the case as Perry played at Trump’s pace and level pegged him for much of the match. Joe led the match at one stage, 4-3 but couldn’t quite turn it around in his favour. Trump did what he needed to do and stepped up to the plate, taking the match from Perry, 5-4 in a deciding frame. Judd is still the man of the moment and looks more likely to win this event as the days progress and the field thins out.
