Snooker World Cup 2011 - the semi-finals

China's Ding Junhui

China and Northern Ireland will be the two teams that will cross their cues in this 2011 World Cup’s final, as China hammered the very well prepared team of Wales by 4-1, while Northern Ireland consumed all the needed frames in its encounter with Hong Kong to win the battle 4-3.


Early in the morning, the first two teams, China and Wales, could be found sitting pretty and waiting for their match to start. And despite the final result that Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo obtain over Mark Williams and Matt Stevens, it can’t be said it wasn't a hard fought match.

Liang Wenbo

The first frame was going to be decided by a re-spotted black, Williams and Ding finishing on a tight 78-78 result. Not long after the black was put on its place, Ding was going to put China on the scoreboard.
Still, during the next frame Stevens' break of 70 points was drawing level between the two nations, but sadly this was going to be Wales' first and last frame; runs of 70, 31 and 50 taking the Chinese players right through the final.

Gerard Greene - ready for the kill

The second semi-final was given between Northern Ireland and Hong Kong and as expected, even though Marco Fu and Fung Kwok Wai didn’t shine, they managed to force the match to end on a decider.

A very scrappy first frame and a very fast second one, were giving Northern Ireland the advantage of going 2-0 up, only to see Fu and Fung winning the doubles with a 58 break to cash their first frame of the day.
However, a steady 64 break was changing the scoreline in Allen and Greene's favour once again, 3-1.

The one and only - Mark Allen

This was the moment when Fung thought he must give 100% and so he hit an 80 break to go one point behind the adverse team, while along with Fu took care of the following frame to force the decider.
But only the best win, and today the best team was definitely Northern Ireland, Allen's runs of 48 and 54 concluding their victory over the Asian team.


The final is ready to start, so please keep your fingers crossed for your favourite team.


From 15:30 (UK time)