China’s Ding Junhui racked up a record-equaling number of centuries by a single player in a Snooker World Championship match on Friday with his sixth, helping him to a 14-10 lead over Alan McManus in the semi-finals.
The 29-year-old Ding hit his fifth ton on the way to a 9-3 advantage over Scot McManus, who responded with his second and third centuries to win five frames and get back to 9-8 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England.
World No. 17 Ding finished the evening session in control, but saw the chance of a 147 break disappear in the 20th frame when he missed a black on 113 after struggling for position.
Photo: AP
The pair’s combined total of nine centuries was a record for a World Championship match, one more than the previous mark.
Hong Kong’s 38-year-old world No. 14 Marco Fu came from 5-3 down to draw level at 8-8 with England’s 2014 champion Mark Selby in the other semi-final.
Fu was shocked to see his tip fly off while he was chalking his cue, having tied the score at 7-7 after two centuries in a three-frame streak.
He lost his tip when his score was on 33 in frame 15, but it was glued back on and he completed a break of 81, taking an 8-7 lead.
Former world No. 1 Ding’s six centuries matched Ronnie O’Sullivan’s against Barry Hawkins in the 2013 final and Mark Selby’s versus Stephen Hendry in the second round in 2011.
He is aiming to become the first Asian player to reach the final, but world No. 29 McManus, 45, the oldest player to reach the last four since Ray Reardon in 1985, is putting up a fight.
Fu and world No. 1 Selby were to resume yesterday morning in the best-of-33 frame contest, while Ding and McManus were to play their final session in the afternoon.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier