World Championship Semi Finals pt1

The semi finals of the World Championship ave always posed a problem for World Snooker.If they are closely fought you get great slow burning drama but on the other side with them been drawn out over three days you run the danger if they are one sided that the whole thing turns into an anti climax and the tournament loses momentum.At one stage this evening it looked like anyone with final session tickets were going to get short changed but in one of the matches at least there might just be a final twist..

Undoubtedly the player of the tournament so far has been Ronnie O Sullivan.There were times in his victories over Ebdon,Williams and Robertson where bordered on been unplayable such was the standard of snooker he produced.The question was coming into this match was could he sustain it or would his opponent Matthew Stevens who has quietly reached this stage do enough to reach his third World Final.

The opening session was a nervy one with neither player getting a proper foothold.This though didn't stop Ronnie taking a 4-0 lead at the interval.To his credit though Matthew fought back to only trail 5-3 overnight,Stevens would have realized to make an impact in the match he needed to start the second session well and this he did winning the opening two frames to level at 5-5.Just as we were wondering if we were really going to have a match on our hands though O Sullivan took it as his cue to turn on the style again.In a run of six consecutive frames .which included breaks of 92,110,98 and 113 he extended his lead to 11-5.They resume tomorrow morning with surely the real possibility of this match finishing with a session to spare.

This for a while tonight seemed as it might be also on the cards as Ali Carter at one stage lead Stephen Maguire 14-7..In the battle of possibly the two most unlikely poker players on the circuit we had plenty of usual head shaking,wry smiling and cue banging as Carter took a 5-3 lead into this mornings second session.He extended this to 10-6 going into tonight as a thoroughly fed up looking Maguire struggled to produce the snooker that had seen him come comfortably through the early rounds.It is therefore surprising that he managed to dig in so deep and won the last three of the session to keep a glimmer of hope alive.He is still running out of time though and starting 14-10 down he will need to be quick off the blocks in tomorrow afternoons final session. .

So on we go and by this time tomorrow night we will know who will be contesting the 2012 World Final.I can hardly wait.