On January 8, Beijing time, the 2024 Snooker Masters was in full swing, and in a focus match that just ended, Zhang Anda, the champion of this season's National Championships, performed sluggishly, losing 2-6 to world champion Shaun Murphy, and participated in the first round of the Masters for the first time, and Murphy advanced to the quarterfinals. In the other opener, Lisowski beat Brecel 6-2. At this point, the first day of the Masters is over, and the quarterfinals have produced 2 seats, and Murphy and the little driver have advanced to the top 8. Zhang Anda and Brecel were eliminated. The Chinese star 2-6 round tour, the top 8 of the Masters have two seats, and the world champion Murphy has advanced.
Zhang Anda is a dark horse that emerged from snooker this season, first reached the final in England Open, and once led Trump by a large score in the final, but due to reaching the final of the ranking tournament for the first time, he lacked experience at the critical moment and was under intense psychological pressure. In the end, it was reversed by Trump and unfortunately won the runner-up. However, not long after the Tianjin National Championships, Zhang Anda made a comeback, defeated O'Sullivan and other masters to enter the ranking final for the second time, and scored a perfect score of 147 in the final and defeated Tom Ford to win the first ranking championship in his career. For a while, the limelight overshadowed Ding Junhui and became the hottest Chinese snooker player. With a good result of one championship and one runner-up, Zhang Anda's world ranking has also soared, rushing into the top 16 in the world, ranking 14th. I also got a ticket to this Masters.
Shaun Murphy is an England star, one of the five tigers born in the 80s, a snooker Grand Slam player (one each in the World Championships, Masters, and British Championships), nicknamed "The Magician". He has won 12 ranking tournaments in his career and has shot 8 out of 147. Last season, Murphy was in hot form and achieved outstanding results, winning the Players Championship, the Tour Championship and the Snooker Championship League three times, and the world ranking returned to the top 10, ranking sixth in the world. Murphy has been in average form this season, and has been out early in many ranking matches. The two have played each other four times before, with Murphy holding a 3-1 advantage.
The game adopts a best-of-11 system. In the first game, Zhang Anda had a poor hand and made many mistakes, and Murphy scored 51 points in a single stroke and won 112-41, leading 1-0. In the second game, Zhang Anda felt warmer, scored 84 points in a single stroke, and won easily 121-8, with a big score of 1-1. In the third game, the two fell into a struggle from the beginning, and then in the defensive tug-of-war, Zhang Anda took the lead and scored 40 points piecemeal, but the offense was interrupted at the critical moment, and Murphy seized the opportunity to complete the Qingcai reversal 48-40, leading 2-1. The fourth game is the same as the third game, Zhang Anda scored 60 points in a single stroke to establish an advantage, the key super red ball, forced offensive mistakes, Mo Fei received a gift of 65 points in a single stroke to complete the clearance, and once again reversed in a single game, and the big score was 3-1 to expand the lead.
In the fifth game after halftime, Shaun Murphy scored 86 points in a single stroke to win and continue to extend the lead 4-1. In the sixth game, Zhang Anda scored 69 points in a single stroke and pulled back a game with 116-7, falling behind 2-4. In the crucial seventh game, Murphy scored 71 points in a single stroke to complete the overscore, and won 78-32, leading 5-2 and taking the lead to get the match point. In the eighth game, Murphy did not give Zhang Anda a chance to go on stage after taking the lead, and sealed his throat with a single stroke of 89 points. In the end, the game ended, Zhang Anda lost to Murphy 2-6, regretting the first round.