Wuxi Classic 2011 - Day 2

19:11:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Murphy's reached the semis
The second day of the Wuxi Classic tournament has been way more exciting than the first one, but the results weren't too much of a surprise. At least, from my point of view. The defending champion, Shaun Murphy did his thing against Peter Ebdon, Mark Selby eliminated Graeme Dott from the competition, Ding Junhui ended on a very tight battle with Stephen Maguire, while the Captain Carter put an end to Yu Delu's run.

There really isn't too much to say about Jester's match against Scotland's Dott. Unfortunately for Dotty, he didn't perform very well, not even like he did the day before this snooker encounter with Selby. On the other hand, Selby put quite a show and succeeded to win one frame after another, with breaks of 34, 49, 92 and 46. It was a total whitewash of the 2006 world champion, performed by the player that still aims to win that title.

Ebbo defeated by the defending champion
At table number one, the table that was covered by EuroSport, Shaun Murphy was looking good. I mean, his playing attitude (if there is such a thing, and I think there is) was more than perfect (if something can be more than perfect ... ok, I'll stop now!).
"The Magician" opened with a break of 102, only to see his opponent draw at one a piece, just a few minutes afeter. Unfortunately for Ebdon, this was going to be his first and last winning frame, for the remaining ones were cashed completely by Murphy with runs of 96 and 69. At the end of the match, Ebdon rise his white towel on his cue, admitting the defeat with a smile on his face. Class!

You don't mess with "the" Ding of snooker
The second part of the day was marked by Ding v. Maguire match. Two frames had to pass into Ding's account before Maguire felt the need to interfere and hit a break of 87 to reduce a bit of the difference. However, Ding's 137 was throwing the same “two frames apart” pattern at the interval.
It wasn't easy, but after the break, Magure seemed to be on fire, as he succeeded to level the match at 3-3, with two wonderful tons of 124 and 107.
Ding was not giving up, so the next frame was taken by him with a top of 80 points, only to see Maguire force a decider. It was four a piece and the boys seem very anxious to finish their day job. So, Ding took plenty advantage of the fact that Maguire missed a brown and hit a 40 break to earn his spot in the semis.

Just a few moments after that, Carter was ending Yu Delu's run with a final score of 5-3. This was actually one of the tightest matches of this tournament, the boys sharing frames up until the score was 3-3. From that point on, the Captain has flown right towards victory with two half century breaks to set a semi-final meeting with Shaun Murphy.

Here's tomorrow's schedule:

From 06:00
SF1 (Shaun Murphy v. Ali Carter)

From 12:30
SF2 (Ding Junhui v. Mark Selby)
*all hours are UK time

TV coverage:
06:00-09:00 British EuroSport 2

Please note that the semis are "best of 11 frames". 

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