2015 World Championship (the Final) - Murphy leads Bingham overnight

The first two sessions of the 2015 Betfred.com World Championship's final are over and Shaun Murphy is the one who holds a slight advantage of 9-8 over his brother in arms, Stuart Bingham.

The Crucible arena welcomed the two players into a thunderstorm of applause and cheers, because for two days the only play that will be staged here is going to be “Snooker history in the making”.

As expected, both Shaun and Stuart played some terrific snooker and maybe just because it was the first day, there wasn't so much tension in the air. Or better say, they played like this was just another match, focusing on potting one ball at a time. But that will soon change.

Murphy was the first one in, breaks of 68, 59 and 65 winning him the first three frames of the opening session, while Bingham could only respond with a 105 to enter the mid-session interval being led 3-1.

After the mini-break of tea, scones, biscuits and whatever, Bingham added one more frame to his collection, only to see Murphy respond with a solid break of 90 points.

But Stu didn't panic and grabbed the last two frames with a top break of 65 to make the scoreline go 4-4.

At returning into the arena for their second session, Murphy was once again the dominant figure for the first part of the snooker rendez-vous, a magnificent set of breaks (74, 106, 121 and 51) helping him capture four consecutive frames.

It must be said that his opponent had a terrific chance to put his nose in front right at the beginning of the session when he made a break of 57, but a missed red proved quite costly in the end.

However, as the mid-session interval was over, so was Murphy's regime. Bingham fought back like a veritable lion, breaks of 76, 123 and 89 putting him just one behind, at 8-7.

NOTE: 

Murphy's 121 break represented the tournament's 83^rd century break, thus equalizing the record established in 2009 at the Crucible.

Bingham's 123 break, on the other hand, is actually the one that beats the aforementioned record and establishes a new one. That's the standard of today's game!

Aaaand now let's get back to our match.

Shaun woken up just in time to record a break of 76 and re-open the two-frame gap, but the session ended 9-8 as Bingham scored a 53 to give us all a hint of how close this final is going to be.

As you all know Monday is the final day and with two more sessions to be played it's still hard to predict a winner, or a winning scoreline, but one thing is guaranteed: these guys will fight until the last ball needs to be potted (even if it's the black ball and it's way past midnight).

2pm
Shaun Murphy v. Stuart Bingham (3rd session)

7pm
Shaun Murphy v. Stuart Bingham (last session) 

*all hours are UK time