World Championship – Day 12 – Rocket Ronnie and Captain Carter land in semi-finals
3 May 2012
Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ali Carter booked themselves a place in this year’s World Championship semi-finals, after The Rocket launched himself over Neil Robertson with a 13-10 scoreline and The Captain flew using a 13-11 result over Jamie Jones.
Although the Robertson vs O’Sullivan match started as a pretty balanced one, it soon developed into a one-way traffic snooker affair; after the Australian player ended the first session leading Ronnie by 5-3, everything changing dramatically.
Robertson’s good form suddenly disappeared when the second session kicked off, his place at the table being taken by an outstanding Ronnie O’Sullivan who used breaks of 48, 44, 97, 62 and 42 to win six consecutive frames and go 9-5 ahead.
Still, by the end of the session, Robertson just managed to pull back two frames with a top break of 63 and enter the last session by being only two frames behind.
But nothing changed during the Australian-English last encounter, even though Robbo seemed to take a good start and win the 17th frame.
O’Sullivan’s response came under the form of breaks of 104, 71 and 100, enough to set him one step away from victory, at 12-8.
The 2010 world champion fought back and succeeded in cashing a couple of frames by using runs of 89 and 77, but the intended comeback was stopped by Ronnie’s top break of 59 that was closing the match at 13-10.
In the other match, Ali Carter put an end to the player that eliminated names like Shaun Murphy and Andrew Higginson, also known as Jamie Kiddo Jones, by 13-11.
The Captain began his flight with a 5-3 lead after the first session and although during the next one the battle of cues became a bit more intense, at one point the players being square at six apiece, he successfully managed to end it at 9-7.
The last session saw Carter reaffirming his position with just a top break of 49 for a 10-7 scoreline, although minutes after that Jones was sure to restore the two-frame gap.
This time Carter flew all the way to 12-8 by using a top break of 79 points and even if Jones’ attempt to come back into the match was a very serious one, the Welshman winning two consecutive frames, the Essex player put an end to the snooker dispute with a break of 79.
The Welsh-clash between Matthew Stevens and Ryan Day ended with the first named one as the winner by a 13-5 final result.
Although Day was the one to win the first session and got a considerable lead of 5-3, by the time the second one was coming to an end, Stevens not only was able to draw level, but also to assume the leading position at 9-7 with runs of 46, 46, 40 and 63.
During the last session, Day was mostly kept in his seat, Stevens winning the two needed frames with breaks of 38, 36 and 41 to secure his place in the next round.
Today the semi-finals kick off with Stephen Maguire having to face Ali Carter and Ronnie O’Sullivan taking on Matthew Stevens in “best of 33” matches.
Ramona Dragomir
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