McGill buoyed by standing his ground over spat

ANTHONY McGILL insists he won’t hesitate to complain about table etiquette again after a fiery and ill-tempered win over Jamie Clarke. The 29-year-old from Glasgow surged into a 7-1 lead yesterday in his Betfred World Championship quarter-final against Norway’s Kurt Maflin. That brilliant performance was all the more remarkable given he sealed a draining 13-12 victory over Welsh qualifier Clarke in the early hours of Monday morning. World No 39 McGill might easily have been jaded after a contest overshadowed by a flashpoint in the tenth frame that saw him confront Crucible debutant Clarke for standing in his eyeline. Referee Jan Verhaas was forced to intervene and the exchanges with an unrepentant Clarke carried on at the end of the frame. The strained atmosphere only added to the pressure on the players, after Clarke declared on social media: ‘You want to dance — let’s dance’. McGill, who revealed the pair had hugged in the dressing room after his win, said: ‘It was a regretful incident, and I wish it hadn’t happened. ‘But I would do the same thing again, absolutely, if the same thing happened again with another player. I’m not accusing Jamie Clarke of this, but I am not going to be bullied or intimidated. If I think someone is standing in my eyeline, I will say something. ‘I am not a first-year pro scared to open my mouth. ‘I was not trying to intimidate anyone because of the scoreline (McGill was trailing 7-2 at the time) and it is insulting for people to think I was trying to scare a debutant. ‘There had been a couple of occasions even in the first session when I had shots and Jamie, etiquette-wise, should have been sitting down. ‘I didn’t say anything, then there were a couple more on a safety battle on the yellow when I am shooting down the table when he was standing. ‘So it blew up into something it should never have been and turned the atmosphere of the match.’ Meanwhile, Mark Williams carved out a 6-2 lead over Ronnie O’Sullivan with a fine display in their last-eight clash. The Welshman, who has won the world title three times previously, moved up a gear following the mid-session interval, winning four frames in a row after the scores were tied at 2-2. Defending champion Judd Trump trails Kyren Wilson 10-6 and Mark Selby leads Neil Robertson 9-5 in a protracted encounter where the tone was set with an hour-long opening frame.