International Championship 2012 - Day 5

01:34:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments


Trump reaches the semis
Day five of the International Championship also meant the quarter-final matches and this time, there were no surprises hidden under the hat, as Peter Ebdon continued his good run and knocked out Ricky Walden 6-0, Shaun Murphy secured himself a place in the semis by disposing of Marco Fu 6-2, Neil Robertson was made responsible by wild-card Lu Haotian’s exit by 6-2, while Judd Trump and Mark Allen crossed their cues into a beautiful encounter that saw the Bristol-boy winning it 6-5.

He might not be everyone's cup of tea, but one thing is for sure, Peter Ebdon is still in the zone, still mastering the art of snooker. We’ve seen him during the China Open and we've seen him during the Australian Open. He's there, not hanging on, but ruling over the green baize.

Today was no exception as the 2002 world champion practically crashed Ricky Walden 6-0 to book himself a place in the semi-final. 

At a near table his soon-to-be semi-final opponent, Judd Trump was disputing a match against Mark Allen, the two having a bit of a history together, since the 2011 UK Championship final.

And since both are attacking players it was no surprise to see them beautifully cueing their way into the match, performing and entertaining the audience with their best shots.

Murphy mastered his way into the semi-final
It could be easily seen that Trump had a slight advantage, if we take into account the fact that he led Allen 2-1, 4-2 and 5-3, but it comes without saying that the proud of Northern Ireland found his way back into the match every time.

In the end though, it can be only one, and this time it was Judd Trump who won the cue-crossing and is now set to meet a player with a totally different style of playing the game of snooker, Peter Ebdon.

Shaun Murphy got involved into a pretty scrappy affair against Marco Fu and saw himself being led 3-1 at the interval, the Hong Kong player winning no less that two frames on the black.

Still, as the last session started "The Magician" put his cue into action and used breaks of 54, 83, 87 and 129 for a 5-2 lead, in the end the snooker rendezvous pointing him as the survivor, at 6-4.

Robertson put an end to Haotian's strom
Lu Haotian proved that a young age doesn't represent an obstacle if you are talented and ambitions and even though Neil Robertson put an end to his run, the little 14-year-old lad from China has a lot to be proud of.

With the likes of Michael White and Dominic Dale out of the picture, Lu signs a pretty important statement that says "China is strong and is going to send more and more players on the Main Tour soon enough".

His match with Neil was a typical case of  "experience talks for itself" as although he managed to put the Aussie in quite some trouble and hold him still up until the second session (Neil put his nose in front only at 3-2), Robertson emerged stronger after the break and put an end to the snooker show at 6-2.

Tomorrow the first semi-final is taking place with the likes of Peter Ebdon and Judd Trump entering the arena. The match will be played in two sessions (best of 17), due to start at 6am and 11.30 am (UK time), and broadcasted LIVE by British EuroSport.

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