Judd Trump punishes Mark Williams errors to gain upper hand in semi-final clash
A tense start to the match was filled with mistakes.
Judd Trump punished a series of costly errors from Mark Williams to build a 5-3 lead in their World Snooker Championship semi-final at the Crucible.
A tense start to the match was filled with mistakes and it was a missed routine black by Williams in the eighth frame that enabled Trump to establish a healthy overnight advantage.
The world number one produced comfortably his worst session of the tournament so far but he finished strongly, even if at times he rode his luck against his 50-year-old opponent from Wales.
The edgy tone for the evening was set in a eventful opener that was ultimately won by Williams’ break of 73, but he needed a fortuitous red when escaping a snooker to put an end to Trump’s fightback.
The caginess continued into a second frame lasting 39 minutes that saw Williams pay the price for an aggressive approach that resulted in an important missed blue.
Trump also took the third after succeeding with a three-ball plant and punishing errors by Williams, although the 35-year-old Bristolian’s play lacked conviction.
When the interval arrived, Williams had drawn level 2-2 after producing a break of 116 and the roller-coaster play continued with mistakes made time and again as the score moved to 3-3.
There was no let-up in the tension with neither player able to seize control of the session and in the seventh frame Trump received a good slice of luck as having been presented with the trickiest of snookers, on the third attempt he fluked a red into the bottom right pocket.
Trump took a hard fought frame that both had ample chances to win and when Williams missed an easy black in the eighth, the Englishman pounced to compile a break of 109 that propelled him into a two-frame lead.
In a gripping start to the other last-four clash, seven-time champion Ronnie O’Sullivan and first-time semi-finalist Zhao Xintong were deadlocked on 4-4.
O’Sullivan’s pedigree and experience on the big stage did not deter Zhao, who took a 2-0 lead and then finished impressively with a break of 86 – the highest of the match to date – to leave things all square after the initial leg of their best-of-33 contest.
With moments to go in the afternoon’s play, Zhao broke a corner runner with a powerful shot to leave balls rolling around the carpet as he applied the finishing touches.
Earlier O’Sullivan, who considered his previous 13-9 win over Si Jiahui to be a let-off, won three frames in a row and at one stage stopped his opponent registering a point for almost 34 minutes.
