Stoke Potter Breaks China’s Finest
Jamie Cope made a giant step forward in his already impressive professional career by beating Chinese number one, Ding Junhui in front of his adoring fans at the Shanghai Masters today.
Cope, who will turn 25 on the day of the final, lost a scrappy opening frame but levelled in the next with a break of 67, before making it 2-1 with a best run of 45.
He got early in frame three and made a decisive 72 to take a comfortable interval lead.
After the interval, both players had chances to win the fifth. Cope got in first but broke down on 37, allowing Ding to counter with 32. After forcing a second mistake from
Cope, Ding looked set to halve the deficit. However, a miss on the green proved costly as the world number 17 cleared to win on the black.
It was one-way traffic from that point on as Cope sealed a famous victory without his opponent scoring another point, closing out with a classy century break (100).
Since winning the China Open as a wildcard in 2005, the home favourite has failed to give his adoring fans much to cheer about on home soil.
In the previous round he trailed Jin Long by four-frames-to-one but recovered to scrape through by the odd frame. There was no repeat against Cope though, who reached the final of the China Open in 2007 and continues to impress, he is surely not far from his first major win.
Matthew Stevens upset the form book by beating Shaun Murphy by five-frames-to-two and will now play Allister Carter for a place in the last four on Saturday.
They say that form is temporary but class is permanent, and while this was not one of Stevens best ever performances, he showed signs of his former greatness and managed to keep his higher ranked opponent quiet for most of the match.
The former Masters and UK champion opened up a commanding 3-0 lead after Murphy looked set to win the first. Having made a break of 45 to leave the Welshman needing a snooker.
Stevens got the required snooker and forced three further penalty shots from the world number seven before eventually stealing the frame on the pink.
The 2005 world champion opened his account just before the interval, but Stevens, one of the most popular players on the tour went further ahead by taking the first after the break.
Murphy rallied briefly, making his highest break of the match in the sixth but the match was over in the next when Murphy conceded after failing to escape another snooker.
