On April 30, Beijing time, the semi-final match of the Snooker World Championship will continue, and the third stage of the Xihuo war between O'Sullivan and Higgins will be contested. After the first two stages, O'Sullivan gradually gained the upper hand, and in the third stage, can Higgins catch up and continue to keep the suspense of the game?
Higgins and O'Sullivan have met a total of 76 times before, and the semi-final of the World Championship is the 77th meeting between the two. In the previous 76 matches, O'Sullivan has won 38 and Higgins has won 35, which is a very narrow gap. This year's World Championship semi-finals are the second time the two have met in Crucible after 11 years.
The two sides were evenly matched in the first stage of the match, with Higgins taking a 3-0 lead at the start and O'Sullivan chasing three consecutive innings to tie 3-3. Higgins then won the seventh inning, with O'Sullivan scoring 107 points in the 8th inning, and the two sides drew 4-4 after the first stage.
After the start of the second stage, O'Sullivan gradually took the initiative on the field, and from the 12th to the 16th inning, O'Sullivan played a lightning five-in-a-row whip and blasted 4 50+. In the 16th inning, O'Sullivan fought back, with a 58 draw dragging the match into a black race, and finally O'Sullivan scored a black ball to kill Higgins.
O'Sullivan had clearly dominated the field in the second stage, but in the semi-finals with 17 wins in 33 innings, Higgins still had a chance to pull the suspense back. At 5 p.m. Beijing time today, the third stage of the two will be competed. At that time, CCTV Sports Channel will broadcast the match live, and it is expected that the two players can play more well in the third stage.