Day five at the Crucible and I think its fair to say this wont go down as one of the tournaments more competitive days.
First up this morning Ronnie O'Sullivan completed the job he started yesterday against Craig Steadman,finishing with a 10-3 victory. Yes its true that if Ronnie is to win a fifth title next weekend he will have to play better than he did here,but that said it was apparent early on that he wouldn't have to play better than this to win this match and he did look at times in fine rhythm.
Next up for Ronnie is Matthew Stevens who quickly put his match with Mark Williams to bed starting the afternoon with a 7-2 and quickly getting the three he needed to round off a 10-2 win.
In the other match finished today Joe Perry saw off Zhang Anda with what in the end was a 10-4 scoreline,but it briefly threatened tonight to become a lot closer than that. Perry had established an 8-1 lead this morning ,but Zhang to his credit came out all guns blazing to win the first three tonight to close to 8-4.The next frame was a real tense affair that went to the colours,but it was eventually decided when Perry potted a superb long blue and followed it with the pink & black to go 9-4.With that ended any hopes of a comeback and Perry put it to bed in the next to seal the 10-4 win.
Elsewhere two of the real contenders for this title finally got their first round matches underway in impressive fashion as both Judd Trump & Shaun Murphy hold 7-2 leads over Stuart Carrington & Robin Hull respectively
They play to a finish tomorrow where we also see the start of Round two with Mark Selby starting out against Anthony McGill and,in what on paper looks the tie of the round Ding Junhui begins his tussle with John Higgins.
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