Mark Williams, Matthew Stevens out – Ding Junhui, Liang Wenbo through to final: World Cup Snooker
Welshmen, Mark Williams and Matthew Stevens have crashed out of the 2011 World Cup Snooker at the hands of China’s Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo. They lost to the Chinese pair by the score line of 1-4 in the semi-final on Sunday, July 17 at the Bangkok Convention
Centre, in Thailand. China will meet Northern Ireland’s Mark Allen and Gerard Greene in the final match.
Both, Williams and Stevens, played tremendously in the round-robin-formatted group matches before they surged into the knockout stage. The Welshmen played former world snooker champion, Neil Robertson and Steve Mifsud from Australia in their quarter-final
clash. They beat the Aussies quite easily by the scoreline of 4-2, to set up their clash with China.
Williams and Junhui started the match with their singles frame. World number one Williams took off brilliantly and soon led 32-8 in the frame. However, he missed a red to let Junhui come to the table, and the Chinese didn’t waste the opportunity. Junhui
smashed a rattling knock of 57 to grab the frame by the scoreline of 85-78.
Stevens, on the other hand, took a 96-25 victory over Wenbo, that eventually proved to be the only frame win for Wales in the end. After that, the Chinese pair didn’t let the Welsh duo take any chances, as they clinched three consecutive games to ensure
their semi-final victory.
While talking to the local media after the match, Williams spoke, “We lost one on a respotted black and one on a black. If you look deep down you can't say if you've played well or not because it's only one frame. We've tried our best in hard conditions.
We were two balls away from it being 3-1 and I should've won against Liang and if Matthew pots the red in the last he would've dished up and we're back in it.”
Stevens added, “It's such a fine line. We knew all along before coming here it was anyone's tournament with such a short format and that proved it. We lost two black ball games but didn't do much wrong and it could've easily gone the other way.”
Chinese team will meet Northern Ireland’s team of Mark Allen and Gerard Greene in the final at the Bangkok Convention Centre.
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