2017 World Snooker Championship (Day 3) - Fu comes back for glory

It was about time to witness a bit of late night drama and seems like the third day of cue action here at the Crucible was the perfect one as Marco Fu managed to perform a spectacular comeback after being led 7-2 by Luca Brecel and win 10-9.

Belgium's best held an overnight advantage of 7-2 over Fu, but a totally different player entered the stage on Monday, the Hong Long cue-man using breaks of 78 and 83 to win the first two frames of the session.

Brecel took the best out of frame 12 thanks to a top break of 56, but it was Fu who ran wild firing in runs of 46, 40, 28 and 29 to go just one behind his opponent to which he added another frame dramatically won on the black to draw level at 8-8.

Frame 17 came and with it a bit of controversy as the ref in charge, Paul Collier call for a "push shot" on Luca Brecel this stopping his break. However, the Belgian prodigy found enough strength to overcome his hiccup and used a brilliantly cued 78 to go just one away from victory.

Drama kicked in when Marco responded with a 85 to force the decider, a decider that he conquered with runs of 46 and 56 for a place in the next round. Tremendous display of stamina!

At the near table, Mark Allen beat Jimmy Robertson 10-8 after an outstanding battle of cues.

The North-Irishman had a 5-4 advantage over his opponent, but Robertson turned tables with just a top break of 62 to take the lead.

From this point on, the lads went side by side up until frame 18 which was cashed by Allen with a break of 97 to seal his victory.


The same 10-8 scoreline was recorded by Shaun Murphy in front of the arising Chinese star, Yan Bingtao, which he led 6-3 after the first session.

Yan got the most of the first three frames (two, to be more precise), while his opponent only cashed one, this allowing the Chinese player to reduce the gap at 7-5.

But Murphy found no difficulty into hitting a ton (109) and winning another frame to go just one away from victory, at 9-5.

The revenge was epic, as Yan hit in breaks of 94, 70 and 47 to win no less than three consecutive frames, before "The Magician" closed the deal with a 44 clearance.

Stuart Bingham has also wrote his name on the list of players that reached the Last 16 after a 10-5 victory obtained in front of Peter Ebdon.

In other matches, Ding Junhui ended his first session on a 7-2 result against Zhou Yuelong, the same scoreline being recorded by John Higgins after facing Martin Gould.

Tuesday's match schedule:

10am
Liang Wenbo v Stuart Carrinton
John Higgins 7-2 Martin Gould

2.30pm
Ding Junhui 7-2 Zhou Yuelong
Judd Trump v Rory McLeod

7pm
Liang Wenbo v Stuart Carrinton
Ali Carter v Graeme Dott

*all hours are UK time

Photos credit: World Snooker