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At 21:00 Beijing time on December 16, 2023, the 2023/2024 Scottish Open will usher in the semi-finals. In the just-concluded first semi-finals, Chinese star Zhou Yuelong was chased for two games in a row with a 5-3 lead. In the deciding game, he was dragged into the black game in the case of over-score, but Gary Wilson was superior and scored a black goal, and Zhou Yuelong was reversed 5-6 and missed the final. Gary Wilson made it to the finals for the second year in a row.
Zhou Yuelong was born in 1998 and has shown great talent in snooker since he was a child, and is known as "Sichuan Ding Junhui". He turned professional in 2014 and finished runner-up in three ranking tournaments in his career: the 2020 European Masters, the 2020 Limited-Time Tournament, and the 2022 Northern Ireland Open, and is currently ranked 21st in the world. In this year's Scottish Open, the opponent Gould in the first round retired and automatically advanced to the round of 32. Round of 16, 4-2 Andrew Higginson. In the battle for the top 8, 4-0 Dominic Dale became the only seedling of the Chinese army to advance to the top 8. In the 1/4 finals with Bingham last night, Zhou Yuelong was dragged into the deciding game by the opponent with three consecutive whips in a 4-1 lead, Zhou Yuelong withstood the pressure, was not soft at the critical moment, and scored 70 points in a single stroke to advance to the semifinals.
Defending champion Gary Wilson, currently ranked 20th in the world. Starting from the delayed qualifying round, he stumbled all the way to the top 8. But when it came to the quarterfinals, Gary Wilson suddenly felt hot, made a big kill, and kept Wakelin 5-0, showing good competitive condition. The two sides have met 6 times in their careers, Zhou Yuelong won 2-4, and the only time in the 11-game system Zhou Yuelong won the 2020 European Masters semifinals, when Zhou Yuelong narrowly defeated Wilson 6-5 and advanced to the first ranking final of his career.
In the first game, at the beginning of the game, Zhou Yuelong took advantage of Wilson's mid-pocket offensive mistakes and took the lead in getting started, scoring 32 points in a single stroke to attack the mid-pocket mistakes. After Wilson scored the red ball, he made snooker. Zhou Yuelong successfully solved the ball 7 times in a row and was penalized 24 points. Zhou Yuelong made a shot of snooker, and Wilson directly solved it, scoring 35 points in a single stroke. After that, both sides made mistakes on offense, and finally Wilson seized the opportunity to play again, winning the first game 81-32.
In the second game, Zhou Yuelong took the lead, and 106 points in a single stroke were also colored. The first two games were 1-1.
In the third game, both sides played unsatisfactory and made frequent mistakes. Wilson scored a total of 55 points on three offensive shots. The third offensive color ball did not score, giving Zhou Yuelong a chance to turn the tables, Zhou Yuelong got started again, cleared the table with a single stroke of 40 points, and won the third game with a 57-55 reversal.
In the fourth game, Zhou Yuelong was penalized for 7 points for defensive mistakes and leaked a simple red ball, but unfortunately Wilson did not score the cue ball and fell into the bag. Ding Junhui scored 14 points in a single stroke and made another offensive error. Wilson seized the opportunity to score 88 points in a single stroke. The score was again a 2-2 draw.
In the fifth game, Zhou Yuelong got a layup opportunity when Wilson led 34-22, and won a high-quality single stroke of 50+.
In the sixth game, Zhou Yuelong made persistent efforts and won 76-9. Come back from the break and win two games in a row.
In the seventh game, there were many mistakes on both sides, and Zhou Yuelong had a chance to get the match point, but unfortunately he didn't grasp it, and Wilson pulled back a game 77-52.
In the eighth game, Zhou Yuelong reversed with a single stroke of 75 points when his opponent scored 43 points, and took the lead in getting the match point. Zhou Yuelong 5-3.
In the ninth game, Wilson scored 122 points in a single stroke and saved a match point. 5-4。
In the tenth game, Wilson saved a match point again 72-33, and Zhou Yuelong played two consecutive games to tiebreakers.
In the eleventh game, Zhou Yuelong regrouped, dared to start, scored accurately on the long platform, got continuous offensive opportunities, and scored 69 points in a single stroke to achieve a super score. Wilson began to enter the snooker stage, and as a result, Zhou Yuelong was penalized for two strokes and entered the stage of fighting for the black ball. In the end, Wilson scored a black goal, and Zhou Yuelong regretted defeat.
Although Zhou Yuelong has been famous for a long time and has won 3 runners-up in ranking competitions, the window paper of the championship has never been pierced. From a technical point of view, Zhou Yuelong is already at the top 16 level in the world, but his psychological quality has always been criticized by fans, which is also the primary reason why Zhou Yuelong has always been hovering in the second rate and difficult to break through himself.
However, this season, we are pleased to see Zhou Yuelong's progress. The British Championship took revenge on Robertson, killed Lao Zhang, and fought with O'Sullivan to the tiebreaker. In the game with the second senior brother last night, his self-confidence was obviously improved, he dared to take the initiative to attack on the long platform, and when he was forced to the decisive game by the opponent's three consecutive whips, he did not collapse psychologically, and he did not relentless at the critical moment, withstood the pressure and won the game, completing self-redemption and psychological transformation. Facing the defending champion Gary Wilson in the semifinals today, Zhou Yuelong's mentality is quite stable despite a lot of mistakes, and it is not easy to fight the defending champion to the deciding game.
Congratulations to Gary Wilson for making it to the final! Gary Wilson will face the winner of Higgins and Sancam!