Ronnie O’Sullivan has been magnificently sent packing out of this years Betfred World Snooker Championships. Mark Allen, the world number 16, is the man that has sent Ronnie home early and what a victory it was.
A match of the highest quality where the pressure on Allen never really seemed to phase the Northern Ireland star, he wound up a 13-11 winner.
The match had been close throughout the three sessions with Ronnie leading 9-7 overnight. Allen came back the fresher player it seemed this morning winning the first three frames to lead 10-9. In the 20th frame Ronnie responded with a 147 attempt failing to get his 10th maximum by missing a difficult 14th black playing left handed.
Even with everything Ronnie threw at him Mark Allen had the confidence and ability to step into the 1/4 finals for the first time.
In this mornings other match, Shaun Murphy only needed two sessions to demolish former semi-finalist Marco Fu 13-3.
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Shaun Murphy joins Marco Fu in the final of the Maplins UK Championships in Telford. The final starts tomorrow afternoon and is live on the BBC in the UK and online.
Marco Fu has had an astonishing tournament where he has simply worked hard to reach another ranking event final, he becomes the second Chinese player to reach the final of this tournament after Ding Junhui in 2005. Fu is the consumate professional and has gone about his business almost without being noticed in this event, Murphy will be a tough opponent.
Shaun Murphy, had until this event had a shocking season, he had not won a match before turning up in Telford. Things have just got better and better for the 2005 World Champion as he has progressed in to the final. His semi-final match against Stephen Maguire was very scrappy and twitchy in places but was topped off with a 136 total clearance to put him 7-3 in front.
My prediction Murphy to win the final by 4 frames!
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