2016 International Championship

[JimMalone]

Ding Junhui becomes our first semi-finalist. He beats John Higgins comfortably with 6-2.

[DeanH]

Ding Junhui becomes our first semi-finalist. He beats John Higgins comfortably with 6-2.

yep and will play Trump or Murphy who are into a decider, with the match that started very slow and cagey; and turned into "fortune favours the brave" type frames

[streamer45]

what a great decider this is

[DeanH]

ah the knuckle to stop what would have been a perfect angle on the last black

then an attempt at long double to rattle....

loving it


miles out there Shaun


Trump gets the "sitter"

what a frame, and match (to the end)

[jonny66]

Great match that, glad I got up early now

[JimMalone]

What a fascinating last frame this was. Great safety duel.

Now Ding vs. Trump. Should be a great match as well.

[Odrl]

Lovely finish. I bet there won't be many frames more entertaining than that decider this season. :smile:

Good stuff from Ding earlier as well. I missed the first few frames, but the second half of the match was a bit of a thrashing. Every time Ding came to the table he seemed to make a century or a 70. :smile:

[Cue crafty]

Lovely finish. I bet there won't be many frames more entertaining than that decider this season. :smile:

Good stuff from Ding earlier as well. I missed the first few frames, but the second half of the match was a bit of a thrashing. Every time Ding came to the table he seemed to make a century or a 70. :smile:

When on form, I've not seen a better player in the game for winning the frame in one visit than Mr Ding. salute!

[mythman69]

Lovely finish. I bet there won't be many frames more entertaining than that decider this season. :smile:

Good stuff from Ding earlier as well. I missed the first few frames, but the second half of the match was a bit of a thrashing. Every time Ding came to the table he seemed to make a century or a 70. :smile:

Here is the decider (well the last bit anyway).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFg_TqEJKNQ

[itsnoteasy]

Trump/Ding, mouth watering prospect.

[finabb]

dislike the way Holt plays and twitches around the table.....so indecisive

[JimMalone]

So we couldn't have had two much better semifinals.
In the upper half we have Ding versus Trump. The two players who have made the most ranking points in this season until today. Both have been in very good form. Tough to pick a winner here, but I'll go with my feeling (and hope ;-) ) and say Ding will win.

In the second half we have the match of the two most recent world champions as well as the world number one against number 2. I haven't seen much of him, but the results suggest that Bingham has played pretty good. While Selby is the favorite, I'm going to call a minor upset and say that Bingham will prevail.

[Odrl]

Another good day of snooker. :smile:

No major surprises in the semi-finals then. In fact, three of the four semi-finalists are the same as in the Shanghai Masters, and two are the same as in the European Masters and the English Open. We definitely have a group of five or six players who have dominated this first part of the season, Ding and Trump certainly being among them.

I have enjoyed their rivalry in recent years. They have played each other a lot in various formats, but the four long matches are the ones that stand out. Their semi-final in the 2011 World Championship is surely one of the all-time great matches at the Crucible, Trump winning 17-15 in a very high quality match. He also played a terrific match against Ding in the 2015 WC, winning 13-4 with one of his best-ever performances. Ding got some revenge this year at the Crucible when he dominated the match right from the start and prevailed 13-10. Ding also won the only major final they've met in, the 2014 German Masters, again with a superb scoring display in the second half of the match.

So we know they are both capable of dominating the match if they find their top form. Ding certainly did against Higgins yesterday, while Trump's win was a little more suspect, as Murphy had his chances to take him out. It's always great to have a two-session match outside of the WC or major finals. But then again, I was looking forward to it last year as well when we had Higgins against Selby, and it turned out to be a little disappointing in the end. Two years ago was great though, Williams against Allen... one of the best matches in recent times.

I am hoping Ding and Trump give us something special tomorrow. I will go for a 9-6 in Ding's favour. :smile:

[OmaMiesta]

I predict a 9-4 in Trumps favour against Ding. Hes shown some incredible form as of late.

[jonny66]

I predict a 9-4 in Trumps favour against Ding. Hes shown some incredible form as of late.

I'm pretty sure that will not be the final scoreline