![\"Zhao](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/e1812696-e5d5-449e-a145-66bb0e5e92d8.jpg\")
<\/p>\nMurphy\u2019s 13-10 triumph extends the list of first-time winners who have failed to return the following year and successfully defend their crown.<\/p>\n
Murphy won four of the first five frames of the final session to turn an 8-8 overnight deadlock into a 12-9 lead, and after Zhao clawed one back to keep his hopes alive, the 43-year-old sealed victory with a break of 69.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew going into it that nothing but my best would do, and thankfully I found it in the third session,\u201d said Murphy, the 2005 champion, who has increasingly found his form since squeaking out a 10-9 first-round win over Fan Zhengyi.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the best wins of my career and I\u2019m delighted to win it and get to the semi-finals. I\u2019ve been churning out performances like this week in, week out, and it\u2019s been a real test of determination and perseverance, but I\u2019ve managed to stay the course.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Allen seized on an \u201cunforgivable\u201d blunder by his opponent Barry Hawkins to book his place in the last four for the second time in four years.<\/p>\n
The Antrim man looked set to be hauled into a nerve-shredding decider after Hawkins fluked a red and was faced with a simple tap up behind the pink to leave Allen in all sorts of trouble.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Zhao Xintong reacts after playing a shot during his quarter-final defeat<\/p>\n
But Hawkins inexplicably came up short with the cue ball, instead plunging himself into problems and ultimately gifting Allen the chance to clear up and win the match 13-11.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have fancied going 12-12,\u201d admitted Allen. \u201cMy heart sank a little bit when he fluked that red out of the snooker and that summed up the match for me. I played 24 frames and I don\u2019t think I had to say sorry once.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hawkins, the 2013 runner-up, held the upper-hand for most of the contest, with Allen required to haul back 7-4 and 8-6 deficits, but increasingly faltered on the big balls in the final session, leading to the dramatic conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unforgivable not reaching it,\u201d admitted Hawkins. \u201cI was worried about over-hitting it, believe it or not. I didn\u2019t want to twitch, throw a quick one in and push the white past. But I just didn\u2019t go through the ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just thinking, that\u2019s it, game over. I was gutted, obviously. What a way to lose. It\u2019s a horrible feeling, knowing that you played an absolutely terrible shot. It\u2019s just gutting, a sinking feel, after such a long match and playing well for the most part.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allen first reached the semi-finals as a fresh-faced 23-year-old in 2009, when he almost retrieved a 13-3 deficit against John Higgins, eventually losing 17-13 but prompting Higgins to describe his opponent as a \u201cstreet fighter\u201d.<\/p>\n
Allen said: \u201cI think I have always had that. I think it\u2019s just being from Northern Ireland, we\u2019re all the same in all sports, we have a never-say-die attitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still haven\u2019t been anywhere near my best but I\u2019m in the semi-final. Ninety-five per cent of the tour would snap your hand off for that. Maybe I should try to talk myself up a little bit because maybe there\u2019s a lot more good snooker that I\u2019m just not believing in.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year I come here thinking I can win it, and it\u2019s no different this year. The first hurdle is getting through that first round, and the next one is \u2018can you get to the one-table set-up\u2019. Then you want to give yourself a chance on Sunday or Monday. I haven\u2019t done that yet and that\u2019s the next step for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neil Robertson leads John Higgins 9-7 and Wu Yize chiselled a 10-6 advantage over Hossein Vafaei with both remaining quarter-finals set to conclude on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Murphy\u2019s 13-10 triumph extends the list of first-time winners who have failed to return the following year and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,112],"class_list":["post-424679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424679","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=424679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}