Day seven at the championship and with the potential banana skin of the first round safely negotiated,the players remaining in the championship looked to step things up,with the result we had some really top quality snooker to enjoy.
A situation that often seems to arise in these longer frame matches is a player establishing an early lead & no matter what their opponent can throw at them they seem to be able to maintain the lead throughout.
That was certainly the case in the match between Kyren Wilson & 2015 champ Stuart Bingham where having managed to claw his way back from 5-0 to 5-3,Bingham,could never manage to,get the two frames in a row he needed to draw level.
That was especially the case in the morning session as frame for frame were traded up to 8-7,before what was possibly the matches defining moment.Needing a snooker,Wilson laid a fiendish snooker on the last red and from the resulting foul,took full advantage of the resulting free ball to to clear and take a 9-7 lead into the night.
Into the night and despite a run of 137 & a maximum attempt that ended on 80 Bingham could not get back into it and it was Wilson who moved into the quarter finals with a 13-10.
Elsewhere Ronnie O'Sullivan,resuming with a 6-2 lead would have had slight hopes of finishing with a session to spare today whereas Shaun would have been eyeing a winning session at least get a foothold in the match heading to the mornings final session.
Today it was Murphy who started the better taking the opener,but Ronnie quickly found his groove again to extend his lead to 9-3 at the mid session interval.
Ronnie now needed the four remaining frames to finish with a session to spare,but any hopes he had of doing this quickly disappeared as Murphy resumed all guns blazing & suddenly with a series of big breaks the game was very much back on,the score now 9-6.
One frame remained then and what a frame it turned out to be as both players missed a series of chances before a fluked yellow looked to be giving it to Murphy.There was to be one more twist though as he missed the subsequent green and Ronnie cleared to lead 10-6.They finish in the morning
The all Chinese clash between Ding Junhui & Liang Wenbo also lived up to its promise and after two highly entertaining sessions its Ding who holds the slight advantage at 9-7,but there could be plenty of snooker left in this one.
Finally Mark Allen must be wondering,after a session where he had three centuries & an 80 odd,just how he only has a two frame lead over John Higgins,but that the way it and its all very much to play for when they resume in the morning,the Ulsterman leading 5-3.
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