Shaun Murphy vs Judd Trump: Bank of Beijing China Open 2011 – Semifinal Preview
The Englishmen Shaun Murphy and Judd Trump have qualified for the semi-final stage of the Bank of Beijing China Open 2011.
Both superstars have played sensationally throughout the tournament and will be looking to take their good form into the match. In the quarterfinal stage of the event, Murphy defeated the world number one John Higgins, while Trump beat the former world champion Peter Ebdon.
Shaun Murphy is ranked seventh in the current world snooker rankings. He faced Joe Perry in the first round of the Bank of Beijing China Open 2011. Before the interval, Perry was leading the match 1-3 but Murphy came back outstandingly and swept four frames in a row to beat Perry 5-3. His next opponent was the wild card holder Chinese, Li Hang.
Hang played brilliantly in his first-round match against Graeme Dott and beat him 5-4 but he lost to Shaun Murphy in the second round 4-5 after a thrilling performance from Englishman. The real test of Murphy’s potting skills actually began when he was up against John Higgins in the quarter-final.
The competition seemed one sided when Higgins took the first frame easily at 63-2, but the Englishman proved the early assumptions wrong and defeated Higgins 5-2 to book his spot in the semi-final. The current season has proved better for Murphy because his match winning percentage in the season so far is 73.8 while his frame winning rate is 60.1 percent.
Murphy's semifinal opponent, Judd Trump came into the televised stages as a qualifier after beating Ben Woollaston 5-1. He faced Hong Kong’s Marco Fu in the first round and clinched the match 5-3. Trump fired some great breaks of 62, 80, 40, 46 and 47 to nudge Fu down. The 21-year-old Englishman set up a Mark Davis clash in the second round of the tournament and thrashed Davis 5-2 with dominating breaks of 69, 69, 40, 33 and 33.
Trump played against Peter Ebdon in his quarter-final clash and defeated him 5-1 easily. The cueman from Bristol, also known as the Ace, dominated the quarter-final match completely from the beginning. He did not give his opponent any chance to unsettle him during the match and grabbed the match easily in the end, booking his semi-final spot against Shaun Murphy on Saturday.
Trump’s match winning ratio in the current season is 70.2 as he won 40 matches out of 57. He possesses the frame winning rate of 59.8 percent; he clinched 208 frame wins out of 348.
Head-to-Head
Murphy and Trump have gone head-to-head two times this season; Euro PTC Event 1 and 4. In the Euro PTC Event 1, Trump defeated Murphy 4-2 while he faced a whitewash defeat to the 28-year-old Murphy in the Euro PTC Event 4. The odds here are fifty-fifty but keeping in mind previous record, Murphy has more chances of winning the semi-final clash.
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