In the early morning of December 17, Beijing time, Australian player Neil Robertson won 5-4 to advance to the semifinals with Mark Selby, who won earlier, with the final blue ball and pink ball in the final of the 2021 Snooker Grand Prix, to advance to the semifinals.
Robertson, who won the Grand Prix in early 2020, is just two wins away from the £100,000 championship prize money after reaching the semi-finals. Robertson has already had an English Open title in his account this season.
In this quarter-final, Yan Bingtao and Robertson drew 3-3 after six sets. Both sides had good single-shot performances, with Robertson scoring 72, 117 and 66 points, and Yan Bingtao scoring 54, 69, 59 and 87 points. The two players who had played each other in the first round of this year's Masters fought all the way to 4-4.
In the decider, Yan Bingtao first scored a single 43 points, and then attacked the red ball in the bottom pocket of the bottom left corner that was slightly farther away; Robertson responded with a single shot of 59 points but failed to directly overtake the score, and the last red ball remained at the mouth of the bottom pocket on the right side. Yan Bingtao failed to school the blue ball in the process of clearing the stage, and the two sides returned to the Global Exchange, and finally Robertson Longtai thin scored the blue ball and hit the pink ball into the middle bag to seal the victory.
Robertson, who is no. 4 in the world, said after the game: "That blue ball was really too thin, but after falling so far behind in the last set, I thought it was better to fight it. The ball was almost impossible to thin, so I aimed at thinner points and scored perfectly. I'm glad that the pink ball was finally schooled to the straight ball position. ”
"Yan Bingtao played a wonderful game and caused me too much trouble, he showed a mature side beyond his age. Maybe the only thing he can improve is to control the white ball steadily. If he can solve this problem, he will become unstoppable. He was very patient and had a beautiful shot, it seemed difficult to make a mistake. I get a big impression every time I watch him play, he has a great chance of hitting the world championship. ”
"Mark (Selby) will play the next game with a sense of revenge because I beat him a few times last season. I love playing against him and he's a good friend off the field. I'll try to spell it out and see how it turns out. ”
Selby had failed to pass the Round of 16 in all of his tournaments before this week, but after beating Barry Hawkins, Mark Allen and Tom Ford in this year's Grand Prix, Selby made it to the final four.
After losing the first set of the game, Selby shot consecutive singles of 58, 74 and 104 points to take a 3-1 lead before half-time. In the 5th set, the two sides struggled to reach the color ball stage, and Forde made a wonderful snooker on the coffee ball, clearing the stage to close the score gap to one inning.
In the 6th set, which lasted 50 minutes, Selby won 4-2 and then won 4-2 match points, and then won the 7th set with a 93-point shot. World number one Selby will play a semi-final match with Robertson at 3 a.m. Beijing time on the 18th in an 11-game, six-win semifinal match.