Fergal O'Brien is through to the Embassy World Snooker quarter-finals tonight after finishing off the challenge of Steven Lee. O'Brien resumed the match at 7pm for the final session in the best of 25 frame second round with an 11-5 lead and while he dropped a further three frames emerged the winner by 13 frames to 8. O'Brien had earlier taken charge of the first two sessions. With all eyes on the match thanks to Dominic Dale's lightning 13-1 defeat of David Gray last night, the Irishman did not disappoint after resuming for this morning's first session of the day 5-3 up on number six seed Steven Lee.
O'Brien struck first to extend his lead by taking the opening frame 72-32 and then chalked another two of the next three frames to go into an 8-4 lead. It was all O'Brien on their return this afternoon as he kept the pace going to edge closer to victory, taking the frame 85-59 and then continuing on his surge, racking up a break of 63 as Lee failed to capitalise on his chance at the table.
The Englishman's hopes of mounting a late comeback capitulated with a shocking miss on the blue with the 15th frame up for grabs. His attempted cut to the middle fell desperately short and O'Brien gobbled up his chance to make it 11-4 and take his sixth frame of a very good day. To his credit Lee rallied to snatch the final frame of the session, but faced an uphill challenge too steep this evening as O'Brien progresses to a quarter-final clash with Mark Williams.
Ken Doherty, the 1997 world champion, will take a 5-3 lead into tomorrow evening's second session of his second round clash with Anthony Hamilton at the Crucible. The Irishman took three of the last four frames of the session to open up some daylight between himself and Nottingham ace Hamilton thanks to two clinical centuries. With the scores tied at 2-2 Doherty emerged from the interval to chalk up breaks of 106 and 104 in consecutive frames to turn the heat up on his opponent. He made it 5-2 with a comprehensive 79-4 knock in the seventh before Hamilton kept himself in touch by taking the tight final frame 59-52.
Meanwhile, Jimmy White finished off his second round with a little trouble when he resumed against Stuart Bingham this afternoon. With an 11-5 lead going in White went on to clinch a quarter-final spot 13-9.
Saturday's Second Round Fixtures and Results:
- S Lee (Eng) 8-13 F O'Brien (Ire): Result
71-22 (71) 44-86 (86) 39-65 25-61 94-11 (71) 69-32 62-64 36-62 32-72 (54) 126-0 (126) 63-69 (Lee 63, O'Brien 69) 0-71 59-85 16-101 (63) 10-63 59-26 24-62 75-50 102-0 (102) 98-0 (91) 15-67
- J Parrott (Eng)3-3 J Swail (NI): latest
67-69 (Parrott67) 72-12 8-80 8-92 84-23 (63) 69-61
- K Doherty (Ire) 5-3 A Hamilton (Eng): To resume 7pm tomorrow
66-58 (Hamilton 50, Doherty 58) 0-87 77-22 (66) 13-56 (54) 114-7 (106) 104-0 (104) 79-4 (60) 52-59 (59)
- J White (Eng) 13-9 S Bingham (Eng): Result
8-132 (132) 80-59 53-69 57-64 66-41 31-60 72-0 80-14 (80) 56-29 67-5 (54) 65-20 74-17 (52) 70-0 (56) 60-3 0-74 (73) 67-14 83-11 8-78 40-75 (68) 49-61 50-70 (70) 129-0 (99)
