Shaun Murphy set to face Peter Ebdon or Ding Junhui in quarters: 2012 Australian Goldfields Open
Former winner of the World Snooker Championship and the UK Championship, England’s Shaun Murphy started his campaign in the 2012 Australian Goldfields Open snooker tournament with a close game against Marcus Campbell in the opening round.
Murphy managed a win to face Tom Ford in the second round. However, comparatively, Murphy was playing easily and sensibly against Ford which brought him an easy win over his compatriot by the score line of 5-1.
In the quarter-final stage, Murphy will be facing the winner of second round match between the 2012 Welsh Open winner Ding Junhui and the former World Snooker Championship winner Peter Ebdon. Whomever he faces, the quarter-final will be quite tussling.
In his post match interview with World Snooker, Murphy said, “Today I went out there knowing I could win and I was pleased with how I played. I'm up against either Peter or Ding next. It'll be an interesting match that because when Ding first came to England
he practised with Peter for many years.”
He added, “Peter's been playing very well the last few months so I'm not sure Ding will have it all his own way. But on form of recent years you'd have to fancy Ding to come through.”
Despite the fact that the Magician tumbled down in the very first frame of the match when Ford cruised into 1-0 lead firing a classy half-century break of 50 points. However, this time Murphy did not take it on his nerves nor he accepted any pressure and
calmly proceeded into the next frame. He produced some interesting game play in the second frame to win it and pull level at 1-1.
Ford was in a hurry to get the lead because this was the only way to put Murphy under pressure. On the other hand, Murphy was very focused especially after having a tussling game in the first round so he performed brilliantly to claim the next two frames
and grabbed a 3-1 lead.
The former champ continued his dominance in the second session and managed to clinch two frames to win the match by 5-1. It will be interesting to see how far Murphy can carry his winning momentum forward in the tournament.
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