Plucky Murphy fights back to keep hopes alive
Shaun Murphy won the last two frames of the day to give himself a glimmer of hope in his quest to reach his first World Snooker Championship final in six years.
Murphy had looked set to leave himself an insurmountable challenge heading into today's concluding sessions after opponent Kyren Wilson turned a 6-2 overnight advantage into a 10-4 lead.
But a gutsy fightback from the 2005 champion, culminating in an 86 clearance in the 16th frame, reduced the arrears to 10-6 and gave last year's beaten finalist Wilson something to think about.
A coolly-taken 69 break from Wilson in the opening frame of the day suggested it would be business as usual but he relinquished the 10th frame in remarkable fashion by giving away 53 points in fouls after being snookered behind the blue.
Wilson re-established his five-frame advantage but Murphy showed signs of stirring with a superb break of 88 prior to the interval.
Wilson took the next two frames, the second with a 131 total clearance, to go six frames clear but it was the 29-year-old who faltered, spurning strong chances in each of the last two frames of the day.
Having snookered himself on a red on a break on 45, Murphy fired his fine clearance to complete the session, leaving the arena with a fistpump which suggests he still believes he can salvage their best-of-33-frames encounter.
Earlier in the day, threetime champion Mark Selby finally found his scoring touch as he opened up a 9-7 lead over Stuart Bingham in their semi-final. Selby had recorded a highest break of just 52 in the first 12 frames of the match before producing brilliant back-to-back centuries to move 8-6 in front.
Bingham responded superbly with his first century, a break of 127, to halve his deficit and looked like snatching the final frame of the second session, only to miss the final red after moving it off the side cushion. Selby cleared to the pink to restore his twoframe advantage heading into the evening's third session.
Bingham then fought back brilliantly to win the first four frames of the evening session as he took an 11-9 lead.