China joy as Fu also makes last 4
Print Edition
DREAMS of a first Asian, or Chinese, world champion moved closer to reality as Hong Kong’s Marco Fu joined Chinese compatriot Ding Junhui in the semifinals of this year’s world championship at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre on Wednesday.
The pair have been kept apart in the last four, raising the prospect of an all-Chinese final to decide the winner of snooker’s most prestigious prize.
Fu withstood a fightback by Barry Hawkins to win 13-1l on Wednesday, the day after Ding became the first man into this year’s semifinals with a 13-3 thrashing of former champion Mark Williams.
Now Fu will faces England’s world No. 1 Mark Selby in the last four, with Ding up against experienced Scottish cueman Alan McManus.
Since the modern world championship came into being in 1969, only two players from outside Britain and Ireland — Canada’s Cliff Thorburn (1980) and Australian Neil Robertson (2010) — have lifted the trophy.
An estimated audience of 100 million in China alone watched Ding beat Fu to win the 2011 Masters title, proof both of the Chinese players’ popularity in particular and the growing appeal of snooker in general across the region.
Fu though had to fight hard to reach the semifinals on Wednesday after Hawkins, who knocked out five-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan in the previous round, launched a remarkable recovery from the seemingly hopeless position of 1-9 behind.
The 38-year-old Fu started well enough Wednesday when, resuming 7-1 up, he won the first two frames of the session, only for Hawkins to rally in style.
But Fu, last a world semifinalist in 2006, eventually held his nerve with a superb break of 74 — in response to 60 from the Englishman — in the 24th frame that saw him into the last four.
“That has to be the best clearance of my life,” said Fu. “I was under a lot of pressure at the end and I couldn’t really pot the last ball.”
McManus reached his first world semifinal in 23 years after winning the last four frames of his all-Scottish clash with John Higgins as he too won 13-11.
“I can and I can’t believe this is happening,” McManus said. “You guys (the media) keep calling me a veteran and I’m thinking ‘give me a break’.
“At 45, I guess I’m getting on a little bit.”
Victory was a triumph for McManus’s grit and he will now take on Selby after the 2014 world champion defeated compatriot Kyren Wilson 13-8.
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