Bingham and Jones neck and neck as Wilson forges ahead
STUART BINGHAM clinched the final frame of a tense and cagey session to level his World Snooker Championship semi-final against Jak Jones at 8-8. Bingham finally came through the 16th frame to leave a war of attrition all-square, while there was nothing to separate Kyren Wilson and David Gilbert in their last-four clash, which will resume on Friday night also at 8-8.
Jones, who battled back from a
nervy start and 3-0 down to finish Thursday night’s session level at 4-4, saw Bingham take Friday’s opening two frames.
Bingham opened up a 6-4 advantage with scores of 70 and 107 – the first century of the match – with the latter break punishing a risky missed plant on a red by Jones.
The Welsh qualifier was struggling to take his limited chances, but pulled it back to 6-5 with the help of a fluked pink before both players missed pots in the 12th frame.
Jones missed a pink with the reds nicely spread, but Bingham failed to
punish him by missing a black while at full stretch and the world number 44 drew level at 6-6.
Bingham then fell behind for the first time in the match, losing a safety exchange before a score of 68 from Jones was enough to edge him 7-6 ahead.
Both players agreed to a re-rack in the 14th frame after another scrappy safety battle, but neither could find fluency and 30 cagey minutes later Bingham made it 7-7.
Jones edged ahead with a break of 69, but in the final frame of the session he gave away 49 points in
fouls as Bingham levelled it up once again.
But in the evening session, Wilson came out firing on all cylinders and after trading the first two frames with Gilbert with 85 and 83 breaks respectively, Wilson went on a five-frame winning streak with breaks of 93, 66, 88, 46 and 69 to carve out a healthy lead.
Gilbert, who looked stunned by the onslaught, sent a message that he wasn’t through just yet by firing a century 131 break in the final frame of the session to remind his opponent he is still in a match at 14-10.