Murphy rally so important

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 task 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.

Earlier, Wilson relinquished the tenth frame in fairly remarkable fashion by giving away 53 points in fouls after being snookered behind the blue. The blue also caused Wilson to falter in the final frame to keep Murphy in touch.