{"id":561331,"date":"2026-05-01T22:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/561331\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T22:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:06:15","slug":"world-snooker-championship-2026-john-higgins-gains-slender-semi-final-lead-over-shaun-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/561331\/","title":{"rendered":"World Snooker Championship 2026: John Higgins gains slender semi-final lead over Shaun Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Having resumed at 8-8, England&#8217;s Murphy struck the first blow on Friday evening with a break of 60 to move into the lead for the first time since the end of the seventh frame.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, in keeping with what had gone before, Higgins immediately responded with runs of 44 and 55 and then pinched the following frame after laying a snooker on the brown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A wonderful break of 82 from Murphy ensured the players could not be separated at the mid-session interval.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The duo then conjured up plenty of drama and some superb snooker as they traded the next two frames. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Higgins constructed a 63 and Murphy then knocked in a superb century from the Scot&#8217;s break-off shot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At that stage 12-12 looked the likely outcome to a session in which both players delivered performances brimming with resolve.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, Higgins found an extra gear when it mattered, crafting a run of 70 and then signing off for the evening with a superb 101.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Having resumed at 8-8, England&#8217;s Murphy struck the first blow on Friday evening with a break of 60&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-561331","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\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}