Stuart Bingham defeats Michael Holt 6-5 in epic quarter final match that went the full distance while Shaun Murphy thrashes Marco Fu 6-2
It was another brilliant session of snooker at the Evergrande China Championship as Michael Holt and Stuart Bingham squared up for another battle that came down to a final frame decider.
Michael Holt has been placing himself among the big snooker names in recent events. He has beaten Ronnie O’Sullivan three times already in the last year and knocked out Neil Robertson yesterday.
Today’s match against Stuart Bingham had almost everything. It began with Bingham taking a 3-1 lead going into the mid session interval. Fresh from the 20 minute break, Holt came out and took the next three frames on the bounce to lead 4-3. Bingham took the next couple of frames with a nice break of 118 to go 5-4 in front of Holt. Once again Holt responded to bring the match level again at 5-5.
In the final frame it was all about Stuart Bingham as little or no chances were given to Holt. A 57 break from the 2015 world champion was enough to seal a semi final place for tomorrow.
On the other table, Shaun Murphy continued his good form against Marco Fu. Murphy quickly racked up a 5-0 lead with breaks of 129, 69, 66, 101, 63 and 64 and it looked like it was heading towards a complete whitewash. Marco Fu responded by taking the next two frames but it was too little, too late for the Asian as Murphy secured the next to book his place in the semi final.
The two winners (Bingham and Murphy) will now face each other in the semi final tomorrow. This will be a mini rerun of the 2015 world snooker championships final as they battle it out for their chance to win the huge £200,000 on Saturday.
