On the evening of February 26, the first semi-final competition of the 2022 World Snooker Tour European Masters began, and The Chinese post-00s fan Zhengyi, who reached the top 4 of the ranking tournament for the first time, and Graeme Dort, the past champion of the Scottish Championships, began to compete. In the end, Fan Zhengyi continued his previous good hand, played 1 hundred, 3 shots 50+, won 6-4 with a big score, continued the "super big dark horse" journey, once again refreshed the career high, and reached the final of the ranking tournament for the first time, in the final battle, Fan Zhengyi will compete with the winner between O'Sullivan and Liang Wenbo for the championship.
Fan Zhengyi, who just turned 21, is one of the representative players of the new generation of the Chinese snooker army, although he has been playing in the professional stage for four years, his real outbreak is this season, not long ago at the German Masters, he finally advanced to the top 8, refreshing the best result of his career ranking. Coming to the European Masters, Fan Zhengyi continued his heroic performance, successively defeating the world's fifth Karen Wilson and Yan Bingtao, defeating Gilbert again in the quarterfinals, breaking into the top 4 and setting a new career high.
The opponent in the semi-finals was Former World Champion Dortmund Socrate, but In recent years, Dortmund's form has declined badly, and the world ranking has fallen to 40. However, at the European Masters, Dort found his long-lost hand, winning four opponents in a row to advance to the top four, creating a new season high. In the previous record of the encounter, Fan Zhengyi and Dort only met once, in the first round of the 2019 International Championship Qualification Round, when Fan Zhengyi lost 2-6. In this semi-final, Fan Zhengyi opened with a good feel, took the lead in winning the first set, and directly played a hundred in the second set, scoring 131 points in a single shot, taking a 2-0 lead. In the third inning, Dort scored 66 points, and in the fourth set, Fan Zhengyi rebounded and led 3-1 into the intermission.
At the beginning of the second half, Dort scored first, but made a mistake in the middle, and Fan Zhengyi scored a single shot of 58 points to complete the counterattack, extending the score lead to 4-1. In the sixth set, the two men's mistakes began to increase, and in the chaos, Dort seized the opportunity to win; in the seventh set, Dort seized the opportunity to play a single 62 points, and played two consecutive sets to chase 3-4. In the eighth set, Fan Zhengyi reversed the decline, scoring consecutive points and scoring 77 points in a single shot to take a 5-3 lead to get match point opportunities.
In the ninth set, the same plot was staged again, Dort first got started to win a single shot 52 points when he made a mistake again, Fan Zhengyi also made a mistake when chasing points, but in the process of continuous struggle between the two, Fan Zhengyi lucky bag mouth ball to do snooker, Dort solved 4 times to succeed. After the two competed in defense, Fan Zhengyi made a mistake, and Dort completed the super point, recovering a match point, 4-5 behind. In the 10th set, Dort started again, but failed to win with one shot, Fan Zhengyi stabilized the ball, played a single 84 points, completed the super score, and finally defeated Dort 6-4 on aggregate, strongly advanced to the final, and once again set a new career ranking record. In the final, he will compete with the winner between O'Sullivan and Liang Wenbo for the title.