Ganesh Kendale
World number one Judd Trump defeated three-time champion John Higgins 6-5 in a final-frame decider to book his place in the quarter-finals of the UK Championship at the Barbican in York.
A hard-fought opening to the match with several tactical exchanges left the scores level at 2-2 at the mid-session interval, with the contest becoming more fluent thereafter.
Trump crafted a superb break of 111 and also made two half centuries to lead 5-4, but Higgins, who made breaks of 58 and 106 forced an 11th frame with a composed 66 under pressure.
However, a loose safety shot from the Scot was heavily punished by Trump, who sealed his victory with a wonderful century.
“It is nice to do it when it really matters like in the last frame, it was a great break,” Trump told BBC Sport.
“When the real pressure is on is probably when I produce my best stuff. The game was too slow and I wanted to speed it up and start taking more balls on. It is a big tournament and sometimes you try too hard at the start.”
He will now face China’s Zhang Anda on Friday afternoon, after the 32-year-old produced a stirring fightback from 5-1 down to beat Stuart Bingham 6-5.
World champion Kyren Wilson maintained his strong start to the campaign by advancing past Chris Wakelin 6-2 and will now play either Michael Holt or Jak Jones next.
Wilson constructed breaks of 85 and 108 on his way to a 2-1 lead and was also able to capitalise on Wakelin’s failure to make the most of several good opportunities that came his way.
Ranked 15 in the world, Wakelin lost the fourth frame after unexpectedly missing the final black and appeared devoid of confidence for most of Thursday evening.
While he took a scrappy sixth frame, he was punished for a missed red to the middle when 52-0 up in the next and Wilson, who has already won the Xi’an Grand Prix and the Northern Ireland Open this season, completed the job in comfortable fashion.
