{"id":421746,"date":"2026-04-28T14:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/421746\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T14:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T14:26:08","slug":"world-championship-2026-zhao-xintong-lets-early-lead-slip-as-shaun-murphy-fights-back-to-take-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/421746\/","title":{"rendered":"World Championship 2026: Zhao Xintong lets early lead slip as Shaun Murphy fights back to take control"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reigning world champion Zhao Xintong let a 3-0 lead slip as Shaun Murphy fought back to claim a 5-3 lead in the opening session of their World Championship quarter-final. <\/p>\n

Zhao, 29, has openly talked about the pressure of defending his crown and lifting the ‘Crucible curse’<\/a> that has followed first-time winners at the famous Sheffield venue, but began in scintillating fashion. <\/p>\n

A break of 122 suggested Zhao had picked up from where he left off against Ding Junhui <\/a>in the second round, and when he pinched the second frame and made a half century in the third, he had established a healthy advantage. <\/p>\n

But Murphy, who won the title in 2005, crafted a 69 then reeled off the next four frames to turn the match on its head. <\/p>\n

The Englishman took the fifth and sixth frames on the black after capitalising on errors from his opponent and controlled the seventh. <\/p>\n

When Zhao missed the pink in a tense eighth frame, it handed Murphy a two-frame advantage heading into their second session on Tuesday evening at 19:00 BST.<\/p>\n

Over on the other side of the auditorium, Barry Hawkins shared the opening six frames of a high-quality contest with Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen. <\/p>\n

However, Hawkins, who had already compiled a century break and three other half centuries, knocked in breaks of 75 and 63 to open up a deserved 5-3 scoreline in his favour. <\/p>\n

Their match also resumes at 19:00 BST on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reigning world champion Zhao Xintong let a 3-0 lead slip as Shaun Murphy fought back to claim a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-421746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}