World Championship Day 8 - Hawk defeats world number one

The Hawk makes another victim, this time it's the world nr.1

A hectic week at work stopped me from properly updating the blog, but here I am (at least for the weekend) trying my best to share my thoughts about Day 8 of the brilliant World Championship.

Probably the biggest surprise of the day was the fact the Barry Hawkins defeated world number one Mark Selby by 13-10, although the Jester had a comfortable lead of 9-6 at one point.

Still, one should never underestimate the power of his rival and today it seemed that even though Barry’s experience with a huge event as the World Championship is not as valuable as Selby's, in the end all the hard work and those endless hours of practice paid off.

After two sessions the lads were at 9-7, with the world number one in charge of the match. But this situation wasn't going to last for too long, as Barry stormed in with runs of 30, 20, 24 and another 30 to pull back two consecutive frames.

Mark Selby fails to see his name on the WC trophy, once more

Mark re-took control of the match for a 10-9 lead, but Hawkins was sure to reply in no time with a 64 for a perfect 10-10 tie.

And that was it for the Jester from Leicester, for the Hawk eased his way towards the quarter-finals with breaks of 44, 36 and 44.

Marco Fu and Judd Trump had a very interesting encounter, encounter that ended in favour of the Englishman, who won the match by a 13-7 scoreline.

It was pretty clear who was the master of the match after the first session ended on a 6-2 scoreline, but as the second one started, things changed a bit.

Trump and Fu

With just a top break of 44 Fu was pulling back a frame and even though Judd managed to re-open the four-frame gap after hitting a perfect 94, the Hong-Kong cueist didn't give in.

A break of 83 was proving he's still fighting, although, just like before Trump was grabbing the next frame.

It was 8-4 when Fu started his three-consecutive march, carefully sustained by breaks of 117, 66 and 70, to go just one point behind Trump.

The second session ended on 9-7 (Trump winning the last frame) and although many of us had hopes for a continuance of Fu's fury in the last session, it just didn't happen.

Trump took control of the table and let his opponent in his chair, runs of 50, 30, 81, 53 and a 31 clearance giving him a well-deserved 13-7 victory and a comfortable place in the QFs.

Trump reaches the QFs

But probably the most expected moment of the day was the re-match between Ronnie O'Sullivan and Ali Carter.

It's been a year since these two met in the World Championship final and many were the ones who wanted to know if the history will repeat itself, or if Carter will take revenge.

It will take two more sessions to find out the answer, but after the first one the result is clear. The Rocket leads by 5-3.

Breaks of 34, 78 and a 66 were the ice-breaker of the match and gave Ronnie a 3-0 start, while Ali barely pulled back a frame with a top of 53 just as the mid-session interval kicked off.

Rocket flying at 5-2 after a first encounter with the Captain

After the mini-break the Rocket continued his march and with a marvellous 125 he flew at 5-1, leaving Carter's fans in the dark.

But the Captain kept it cool and with breaks of 82 and 61 won the last of the remaining two frames, to trail 5-3.The boys will return this Sunday, from 14:30 for their second session.

The last match of the day featured the names of Mark King and Ding Junhui, the Englishman ending the first session with a remarkable lead of 6-2, thanks to breaks like 59, 60 and 57.