2015 World Championship (Day 14) - Magic Murphy ready for final

Hello there my dearies! Today I bring you news from the wonderland of snooker (aka. Crucible just in case you've forgotten) where Shaun Murphy is just one step away from reaching the final.

The Smurf, whose form is just spectacular, is currently leading Barry Hawkins by an amazing 16-8 scoreline.

It was crystal clear right from the end of the first session who was the strongest player, Murphy closing with a 6-2 advantage over a devastated Hawkins. 

But when the second session kicked off this Friday we'd hoped to see a more revived Hawk in action. In wasn't going to be the case. At least not in this session.

Shaun was the first one in breaks of 73, 105 (which was the 70^th of the tournament; just pause for a moment here and say wow! thank you, let's carry on now), 79 and 72 to win no less than FOUR frames in a row and fly at 10-2 up. Brilliant!

Hawkins found himself in a very dark place, but still managed to grab the 13^th frame with a great 79 clearance. Still, by the end of the session, Murphy was rocking around the snooker table thanks to breaks like 121, 38 and 54 for a 13-3 lead.

No turning back from this one! We even thought this might end on Friday evening and Murphy would have a session to spare the next day, but boy were we wrong!

Despite Murphy's early contribution which came under the form of runs of 32 and 26, as the third session started to develop it was easy to see something had changed in the way Barry was approaching basically everything. 

And for a moment there I think he didn't mind the scoreline and just went for it. What a great effort it was!

Breaks of 103, 57, 104 and 73 were winning him FOUR frames in a row (deja-vu anyone?) making the scoreboard show a 14-7 scoreline.

Still, the magic that surrounds Shaun (I'm not quite sure if it's because of those fancy suits of him or just because he's playing awesome snooker) kicked back with breaks of 83 and 106 to go just one away from victory.

It looked like despite Hawkins’s efforts this was going to end. Until Murphy overcut a red down on 22, Barry coming down to the table and making a 76 break to keep the match alive, as well as his hopes for a comeback this Saturday.

All odds are against it, but one never knows!

Another two snooker gladiators crossed their cues for another session this Friday, Stuart Bingham managing to maintain his leadership of two frames over Judd Trump, 9-7.

The lads re-started their match with Bingham in the lead (5-3) a break of 52 offering him an ever bigger advantage before his dangerous opponent could resist his dominance.

Trump used breaks of 113 and 63 to pull back two frames, but Stuart broke his momentum with a 67 to enter the mid-session interval leading 7-5.

After the 15-minutes break Bingham returned into the arena and quickly added one more frame to his collection, but the Bristolian fought back with a top break of 45 to restore the two-frame disadvantage.

One more time Bingham tried (and succeeded) to detach himself from his opponent even further, a break of 85 proving quite handy in his case, but Trump was sure to respond with a 64 in order to trail 9-7.

Saturday will see the conclusion of these two matches, so be sure to clear your schedule, for the ones who win will go straight into the grand final.

10am
Judd Trump v. Stuart Bingham (7-9)

2.30pm
Shaun Murphy v. Barry Hawkins (16-8)

7pm
Judd Trump v. Stuart Bingham (last session)

*all hours are UK time