First blood to Murphy as Hawkins’ wings are clipped

SHAUN Murphy drew first blood in his World Snooker Championship semi-final, punishing a jaded-looking Barry Hawkins to open up a 6-2 advantage.

In the other last four clash, Stuart Bingham had an early 4-3 lead over Judd Trump.

Following his quarter-final victory over Anthony Mcgill, Murphy said he had no preference as to whether he played Neil Robertson or Hawkins in the semi-final, just as long as their last-four clash became a 25frame epic. He got his wish and Hawkins, back on the table after his late night 13-12 win, was way off the pace.

He surrendered the first three frames to Murphy.

Resuming with a 3-1 lead after the mid-session interval there was no let-up from Murphy, who rolled in an impressive break of 105.

Hawkins was looking comfortable in frame six until his bow tie came undone and needed the assistance of Dutch referee Jan Verhaas to retie it. However, his break of 69 proved good enough to reduce the arrears to 4-2. But Murphy has been the most consistent of any of the semi-finalists in the last 13 days at the Crucible and, after Hawkins left his break off short, the Nottingham potter made a 138 clearance.

The outcome of the final frame of the session would be pivotal to the mood of both players overnight, but the nature of the way it played out would have had Hawkins kicking himself.

After making a break of 50, Murphy responded with an exceptional clearance of 79 to take a four-frame lead.

In the evening session, Bingham kept his emotions in check to lead 4-3 against tournament favourite Trump. Having been reduced to tears after beating Ronnie O’sullivan in his quarterfinal, he had to sit and watch as Trump made breaks of 49 and 33 to take the opener.

And he then pieced together an impressive break of 64 in frame two with the pink and blue tied up, but missed the red that would have left Bingham needing snookers to give his opponent an unexpected return to the table.

Long pots to sink successive reds showed Bingham was showing no sign of nerves in his first Crucible semi-final. And he held his nerve for a majestic clearance of 65, winning the frame on the black. Trump took the scrappy third frame but Bingham fought back in the fourth to go into the mid-session interval level.

Bingham edged ahead for the first time by taking the fifth frame and extended his advantage further with a fine clearance of 74 before Trump hit back to take the seventh.