The Hindu : Sport / Billiards & Snooker : Murphy fightback stuns Stevens

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Thursday, May 03, 2007
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Murphy fightback stuns Stevens

SHEFFIELD : Former champion Shaun Murphy of Wales, trailing 11-5 on Tuesday night, produced a stirring comeback to beat Matthew Stevens and book his place in the last four at the World snooker championships here on Wednesday.

Stevens looked to have the quarterfinal wrapped up when he took the first frame of the new session to go 12-5 and one frame away from the semifinals.

But Murphy knuckled down to reel off the next seven frames to square an enthralling tie, the Englishman going on to clinch the deciding frame 87-0.

Later, Scotland's Stephen Maguire reached his first semifinal with a dominant 13-7 win over Anthony Hamilton.

All square

Meanwhile on Tuesday, two former champions Ronnie `Rocket' O'Sullivan and John Higgins were locked in an enthralling encounter with their quarterfinal tied at 4-4 after the first session.

Elsewhere English qualifier Mark Selby's dream tournament was continuing as he led Ali Carter — victor over seven-time champion Steven Hendry in the second round — 5-3.

Higgins looked more like the player that should be nicknamed `Rocket' as he blazed into a 3-1 lead but two-time champion O'Sullivan stormed back to make it 3-3 with two breaks of over 50.

Higgins, the 1998 champion, hit back with his 350th career century break when he made a 110 clearance in the seventh frame but again he was pinned back by O'Sullivan, who made a break of 76 to leave the match beautifully poised.

Quarterfinals results: Shaun Murphy (Eng) bt Matthew Stevens (Wal) 13-2; Stephen Maguire (Sco) bt Anthony Hamilton (Eng) 13-7. — Agencies

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