{"id":427071,"date":"2026-05-01T14:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T14:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/427071\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T14:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T14:26:08","slug":"tense-murphy-higgins-semi-final-remains-on-a-knife-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/427071\/","title":{"rendered":"Tense Murphy-Higgins semi-final remains on a knife edge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shaun Murphy battled back to leave his World Snooker Championship semi-final against John Higgins tied at 8-8 ahead of their evening session in Sheffield.<\/p>\n

The standard of play was a sizeable upgrade on Thursday’s scrappy first session that was shared 4-4.<\/p>\n

But both players still wasted big opportunities to open up a commanding lead at the Crucible Theatre.<\/p>\n

Four-time world champion Higgins looked as if he might be capable of achieving that advantage after taking an 8-6 lead and putting Murphy\u2019s cueing under pressure.<\/p>\n

But Murphy held his nerve to draw level and restore parity in a session where he had made only one break over 50.<\/p>\n

Murphy was in pole position to win the opening frame before his run of 49 ended by missing a straightforward black when attempting to cannon a red and keep position.<\/p>\n

\"General
\nThe Crucible crowd were gripped by the tight session<\/p>\n

Higgins made a 72 clearance to lead for the first time, but Murphy kept his focus in the next frame with a fine response of 88.<\/p>\n

A brilliant long red would get Higgins going again and he had reached 67 before striking a frame-winning black too hard.<\/p>\n

The Scot was back in front though as a Murphy miscue let him finish matters off.<\/p>\n

Murphy tied the scores at 6-6 after a break of 47 put him in command.<\/p>\n

Higgins failed to cut a difficult black into the corner and Murphy capitalised to reach the mid-session interlude with a stride in his step.<\/p>\n

That bounce quickly disappeared as Higgins made a decisive 57 break and a freak screw back into baulk in the next frame saw Murphy lose position and momentum.<\/p>\n

Higgins punished him with a break of 86 \u2013 his best of the match \u2013 before Murphy edged a nervy 15th frame which lasted 37 minutes.<\/p>\n

Murphy was 53 ahead with 51 remaining and Higgins needing one snooker, which he got when the Englishman found himself tucked behind the black and slid past a red up the table.<\/p>\n

There were more safety exchanges with various colours tied up and Murphy, having potted a wonderful long green to leave Higgins requiring another snooker, could not breathe easily until sinking the pink.<\/p>\n

Murphy was vulnerable in the final frame to a two-frame deficit after a missed pink into the middle pocket ended his flow at 28.<\/p>\n

But Higgins missed a red with the rest and a double kiss cost him dear as Murphy made a 31 clearance to leave the contest on a knife edge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shaun Murphy battled back to leave his World Snooker Championship semi-final against John Higgins tied at 8-8 ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-427071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427071","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=427071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}