SNOOKER
Stephen Hendry achieved the most one-sided victory of the Citywest Irish Masters so far as he crushed Scottish rival Alan McManus 6-1 to reach the last four in Dublin last night.
The seven-times world champion powered to a nineteenth victory over Glaswegian McManus, who failed to pot a ball in five of the seven frames.
At one stage Hendry, now set for his eighth semi-final appearance of the season, outscored the 1993 and 1994 Masters finalist 358-0.
The 32-year-old Scot tonight meets Mark Williams for a place in Sunday's final, and having beaten his Welsh stablemate convincingly last month in the final of the Malta Grand Prix, Hendry will fancy his chances.
''I played pretty well without making any real big breaks. In all the frames I won I needed two visits to win them,'' said Hendry, bidding for a fourth Irish title.
''I'm happy with my game. I've been playing well now for three or four months without winning major tournaments.''
Hendry turned on the power from the opening frame, going
1-0 ahead with a break of 53. He made 36 for 2-0, 87 - his highest of the match - for 3-0 and 64 to lead 4-0.
McManus, who had a rare win over his compatriot at the British Open earlier this season, prevented a whitewash in frame five as a 51 gave him a 73-14 win.
There was to be no comeback. McManus was denied a point in the final two frames as Hendry added further telling contributions of 52 and 53.
Of his forthcoming match with Williams, Hendry said: ''He is the world champion, so he is favourite for the tournament. I will have to play as well, if not better, if I'm going to beat him.''
Williams, looking to capture the title for the first time, had
earlier beaten fellow Welshman Matthew Stevens 6-4.
With the defence of his world crown just three weeks away Williams is desperate to string together some impressive results to depress his Crucible rivals.
He said: ''I've set my sights on winning this week to boost my own confidence before the world championship.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article