SNOOKER – World Championships:Steve Davis kept the prospect of a stunning upset alive in his enthralling second-round match against world champion John Higgins.
With Higgins attempting to defend his World Championship trophy and become the first man to land back-to-back Crucible titles since Stephen Hendry won five in a row from 1992 to 1996, veteran Davis has emerged as his potential slayer.
Davis last won the world title in 1989, and it is too early to predict he could land his seventh this year, but certainly the scalp of Higgins is almost within his grasp after he opened up a 9-7 lead.
Should he win, it would register as perhaps the greatest of all Crucible upsets. Davis was a 500/1 shot for the title before the tournament began, with Higgins 5/1, and the veteran has suggested anyone taking the odds on him would be frittering away their money.
Perhaps not, but there remains a final session to get through tomorrow, and the lead could quickly evaporate.
Higgins has played more like the long-odds outsider so far, and even though he ‘won’ today’s session by five frames to three it was Davis who left the arena in high spirits after pinching the last of the session.
Eight-all would have meant Higgins going favourite, but with a two-frame lead Davis has an outstanding chance of reaching the 13-frame victory mark.
Davis had played superbly to lead 6-2 overnight, and when they split the opening four frames this afternoon it meant he would at least finish the session on level terms.
Higgins began precisely as he would have wanted, with a frame-winning 78 break, and then added the second of the day.
The response was emphatic, Davis producing an 83 break and then snaffling another frame.
A scrappy, low-scoring frame went Higgins’ way after the interval, before he fired in a break of 106 to trail by only 8-6.
Yet neither man was playing particularly well. Higgins was not giving a performance becoming of a man of his status, but Davis was missing just as many balls.
Higgins cut the gap to 8-7, and should have then gone level but missed a simple red at 28-1 ahead in frame 16. It was inexplicable, and Davis was not about to pass up the gift of an opening.
He rammed in a rapid 55 break, Higgins left a red after being put in a snooker, and in it went, putting Davis 29 in front with 27 on. Higgins failed to navigate an escape route and walked over to shake Davis’ hand.
Northern Ireland's Mark Allen became the first man to reach the quarter-finals as he completed a thumping 13-5 win against England's Mark Davis.
Davis had won the first two frames of the match but Allen then took control and made three centuries in the match, including yesterday's 146 and runs of 131 and 101 in the final two frames.
Allen, 24, said: "I've started to close out matches pretty well now and to finish with two centuries was an added bonus.
"I feel like that form's been coming because I've been making seventies and eighties every time I get in and scoring well."
Former world champion Graeme Dott, needing to reach the semi-finals to reclaim his place in the top 16, opened up a 7-1 lead over his fellow Scot Stephen Maguire.
Dott went on runs of 94, 110, 99 and 59, and Maguire had a top break of 35, from the opening frame, which he lost.
World number two Maguire has never reached a Crucible final, and his prospects for this year were left looking bleak.