Doherty loses Fu fight
Marco Fu tonight became only the second Asian player to reach the semi-finals of the 888.com World Championship by recording a shock 13-10 victory over Ken Doherty.
The Hong Kong player emulated James Wattana as he maintained his status for being the tournament’s surprise package, and now only Peter Ebdon or Shaun Murphy stands between him and the final.
Doherty, so impressive against Matthew Stevens in the second round, was hot favourite to win the match and at 8-6 up looked set fair to go on and complete a resounding win.
But Fu, a 125-1 outsider at the start of the tournament, has been producing some composed break-building in Sheffield and when he made a 110 to level it at 8-8 it was clear he would not lie down.
Today’s play was largely tactical and two consecutive frames, which took the score to 10-10, lasted a total of an hour and three quarters.
After the interval, however, the 28-year-old qualifier took his chances when among the balls and contributions of 60 twice and 75 secured his progress.
“The frame I won to make it 10-10 was massive because Ken had come from three snookers down to steal the previous one,” said the world number 24.
“The interval then came at the right time for me. I went to the dressing room, composed myself and came out really strongly. I had been prepared for it to go to the wire.
“I’ve never thought about winning the tournament. I came here with only one goal – to enjoy myself because I haven’t been doing that. I’ve been struggling in tournaments.
“But working with my coach Terry Griffiths has brought a lot of improvement and the hard work is really paying off.”
Doherty admitted he had missed out on a golden opportunity to repeat his 1997 World Championship triumph.
“I blew it,” said the Irishman. “I can’t grumble because I had my chances.
“I’m very disappointed to have played the way I did after my performance against Matthew Stevens.
“I lost a lot of silly frames early in the match and sometimes they come back to haunt you.
“But I have to take my hat off to Marco. He played well tactically and made some good breaks. If he keeps doing that he can beat anyone.”
Earlier, Graeme Dott thwarted a magnificent fightback from Australia’s Neil Robertson to reach the semi-finals for the second time in three years.
The Scot let slip leads of 10-5 and 12-8 as Robertson forced a deciding frame before going through 13-12 to book a possible clash with Ronnie O’Sullivan, his conqueror in the 2004 final.
O’Sullivan, who had been level at 4-4 with Mark Williams after their opening session, had much the better of things when the match resumed and stormed 10-6 ahead.
It was eight frames of high quality as ’The Rocket’ compiled breaks of 109, 95, 72, 70 and 68, each player generally taking full advantage when in the balls.
Defending champion Murphy fought back into his quarter-final against Ebdon after a nightmare first session in which, other than a 64 in the last frame, he could barely get over 20.
Murphy, who lost the first seven frames of the match, rediscovered his trademark long potting to make breaks of 113, 83 twice and 77 to trail 10-6 heading into tonight’s conclusion.
