We’ve reached the third and final Saturday of the World Championship and by the end of it we will know the identity of the two men who will battle it out over the remainder of the Bank Holiday weekend for the title and the huge first prize.
The crowds inside the Crucible Theatre have been treated to some fantastic snooker so far in the semi-finals and I’m sure plenty more will be provided on what could be a Super Saturday, and will be for two men.
Friday recap
The majority of the quality came in the first semi-final which played two sessions on Friday. One of the best sessions of snooker ever seen at the Crucible was played out in the morning as Ding Junhui and Alan McManus shared four centuries and a pair of 90 breaks in a scintillating spell of action.
McManus went into the second day of that semi-final 6-2 down and that became 9-3 to Ding and it looked bleak for the Scot but he reeled off the next four to finish that session trailing just 9-7.
The third session of the match wasn’t as good in terms of centuries but the breaks continued to flow and even with a session to spare our original over 18.5 50+ breaks has already landed such has been the quality of the match.
Ding won that third session 5-3 courtesy of stealing the final frame of the evening and he will take a 14-10 lead into the final session on Saturday afternoon.
All sorts of goings on happened in the second session of the other semi-final. Easy balls were missed, it was tense and at times it was quality and then we even had the bizarre incident where Marco Fu’s tip fell off as he chalked it!
Despite that strange happening, Fu held himself together and was mentally strong enough to win the session 5-3 to go from 5-3 down to 8-8 at the halfway stage of the match. It is a match which looks like being tight throughout and which should provide plenty of intrigue over the second two sessions on Saturday.
Saturday betting
I’m quite happy with where I sit in the Selby-Fu semi. One of them is going to have to win 9-3 from here for the over 28.5 frames not to land and I don’t see that happening and I still think Fu will win so I’m happy to just let those ride in that match.
In the other match I’m priced in on Alan McManus. In theory he’s got no chance needing to win 7-2 from this position but he should have had little chance in the final session against Ali Carter and John Higgins but he overturned deficits both times.
Ding wasn’t massively convincing when Judd Trump was coming back at him in the second round and that could encourage McManus here. It should be beyond McManus this but it has been a really crazy tournament so far and if he can get back somewhere near parity and get the pressure right on Ding you’ve got to think McManus is the more reliable of the two in a tight battle.
He should have no chance but logic hasn’t applied to too much of this tournament so far so at 14/1 I’ll pay to see if Angles can get the twitches into Ding and come out the other side.
Tips
Back A.McManus to beat D.Junhui for a 1/10 stake at 15.00 with Bet365
Back him here:
