Haikou World Open 2012 (quarter-finals) - Pistol Allen shots again, Milkins sends Higgins home

00:33:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Allen in the semis
It feel like only yesterday we were starting our journey through China's Haikou and here we are now, five days later with the quarter-finals matches sending their winners straight into the semi-finals of the World Open tournament.

Today victory was the name of the game for Mark Selby who whitewashed Shaun Murphy 5-0, for Mark Allen who shot a 5-1 scoreline in his match against Mark King, but also for qualifier Robert Milkins who obtained a huge recognition of his talent by taking down John Higgins 5-3, while Stephen Lee easily cruised towards the semis with a 5-1 in front of Graeme Dott.

It was 6.30 am in the UK when three "Mark's" and one Shaun were staring their battle of cues for the first two places in the semi-finals.

A "gloved" Selby crashes an overwhelmed Murphy
The same difficult conditions with the humidity factor making the tables run a little bit different than the players are used to and with the floor doing the same horrible and disturbing sound each time the mighty baize gladiators were walking across the table; it was almost impossible not to hear at least one player blaming them for playing poor. And who can say they are wrong?

It was the case of Shaun Murphy who wasn't feeling pretty good (“a bout of sickness”, as World Snooker reported) and wasn't really at his best either, thus losing the battle against Mark Selby by 5-0.

The Jester won his first frame with a break of 105 and continued to cruise to victory, while his opponent was clearly struggling. After the match, Murphy said on his Twitter account: "Very disappointed to lose. 0-5 or 4-5 doesn't matter. Gutted"

In the other quarter-finals match, Mark Allen put his cue back in action to beat yet another snooker rival, this time Mark King by 5-1.

Milkins sends home Higgins
The player nicknamed "The Pistol" used no less than two century breaks (103 and 100) and a 71 to overcome King's winning of a very scrappy affair and booked himself a place in the semi-finals where we’ll be meeting with the winner of the previous match, Mark Selby.

In the after-noon session, John Higgins and Robert Milkins engaged in what was, maybe one of matches with the highest standard of this tournament. They both cued like a dream, consistency not being an issue and almost forgetting all about the dreadful playing conditions.

Milkins, a player that had to qualify for this event, started his battle of cues with breaks of 117 and 97 to fly at 2-0, while Higgins responded with a 67 and a beautiful 136 clearance to draw level at the interval.

World champion, J.Higgins once again so close to victory
After the break, the Englishman regained his leading position with a 75 and continued with a 76 to go one away from victory at 4-2. Still, Higgins wasn't going to let his opponent win that easily, a break of 91 bringing him the 7th frame.

Milkins ended the match with runs of 48 and 27 to safely land in the semi-finals where he's facing the Stephen Lee, who beat Graeme Dott 5-1 after hitting in runs of 26, 24, 37, 31, 60 and 26.

Tomorrow the penultimate day of this year's Haikou World Open opens with Mark Selby v. Mark Allen match (from 6.30am UK time) and is closing with Robert Milkins v. Stephen Lee one (11.30am UK time).

TV coverage:
06:30 - 09:30 British EuroSport 2 (LIVE)
15:30 - 18:30 British EuroSport 2
19:00 - 22:00 British EuroSport


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