Ding Breaks Ebdon Defence
Chinese hero delighted the Beijing crowd, with a five-frames-two win against defending champion, Peter Ebdon in the China Open.
The 23-year-old stormed into a 4-0 lead with stunning breaks of 93,121,44 and 92 outscoring the 2002 world champion 367 points to 55.
After the interval, Ebdon made the scoreline respectable taking the nest two frames with runs of 49 and 70.
It was more delaying the inevitable though as Ding, winner in 2005, resumed normal service and finished the match off with a 65 break to take his place in the last four.
There he will face Northern Ireland's Mark Allen who recovered from 4-2 down to beat Stephen Hendry in a deciding frame shoot-out.
A break of 72 gave the left-hander the opener before Hendry showed the class that took him to seven world titles with a 126 of his own. Allen made 69 to retake the lead before the Scot won three scrappy frames in a row putting him on the verge of a semi final place.
Despite a couple of good chances, Hendry could only manage 32 points in the next three frames as breaks of 63 and 77 heped Allen over the line.
In the other semi, 'Captain Allister Carter eased past his close friend, Mark King by five-frames-to-one. King took the opener with a break of 74 but Carter settled into the match and had a relatively smooth flight into the last four.
There he will meet Wales' Mark Williams, who controlled his match with Marco Fu from start to finish. The highlight being a 116 break to lead 3-0 and although the Hong Kong player reduced the deficit to just two at half time, the former world number one took the next two to set up the match with Carter and remain on course for his ranking title in almost seven years.
"It would be good to win again", Williams told Global-snooker.com. "My two boys are not convinced that I was ever any good!"
