SNOOKER/World Championship: After surviving the challenge of a former world champion in the previous round, Ken Doherty's campaign was thrown off course by nothing more than a small amount of Plaster of Paris as the World Championship semi-finals began in Sheffield yesterday.
Doherty entered the Crucible arena full of confidence after playing some of the best snooker of his life on the way to beating John Higgins in the previous round. When he left it almost four hours later, the 1997 champion had toiled to little avail, ending the day 6-2 down against Paul Hunter.
His struggles began in the opening frame when, trailing by seven points, Doherty failed to double the last red into a centre pocket, and from the resulting opportunity Hunter cleared to the pink.
The 24 year old Yorkshireman was gifted a chance at the start of the next frame when Doherty's dreadful safety left an easy red on, and also split the reds wide open. Hunter's resulting 62 break set him on the way to a 2-0 lead.
Doherty dominated the next frame with a break of 67, but was then involved in a bizarre incident at a key moment in the fourth. Leading by 18 points, the Dubliner attempted to lay a roll-up snooker behind the brown.
Over a distance of just six inches, however, the cue ball veered off line.
Hunter thereby escaped the difficult position he would otherwise have been in, and on his next scoring visit he put together 49 to lead 3-1 at the interval.
On the resumption, Hunter got in first with 38 before missing a red to the corner. Doherty's reply of 33 came to an end when he missed a black off the spot in attempting to screw back, and Hunter stepped in with a winning clearance to pink of 52.
He might have stretched that lead in the next, but missed frame ball pink, and Doherty cleared the last two colours to win a battle which had dragged on for 49 minutes.
The Dubliner looked like closing the gap to just a frame until Hunter pinched the seventh by clearing from yellow to pink. And when Doherty disappointingly failed to cut in a yellow in the last of the afternoon, Hunter pounced again by running 38 to secure a four-frame overnight lead.
Coming as it did just three days after a wave of criticism from players had forced an unscheduled re-clothing of the table, Doherty's mysterious failure to roll up behind the brown was a source of further embarrassment for championship officials.
Their response was to issue a statement which blamed the re-positioning of the table into the centre of the arena on Wednesday night.
"As the table settled into the floor, a few fragments of Plaster of Paris (which is used to join together the slates under the cloth) collected under the baize near the brown spot," it read.
The problem was rectified after the session, but six-time champion Steve Davis felt Doherty had every reason to feel annoyed.
"If Ken had put the white in behind the brown he would have been a big favourite to level at 2-2 instead of going 3-1 down," Davis said. "I'd be quite aggrieved if it happened to me."
Doherty will have to put the incident, and his patchy display, to the back of his mind when the players return for the next eight frames of their best of 33 contest this morning.
In the other half of the draw, Mark Williams, playing at this stage for the first time since he won the championship three years ago, closed with a 7-1 lead over semi-final newcomer Stephen Lee.
Lee led 61-0 in the opening frame, but eventually lost it when Williams cleared the colours to win on the black. The Welshman added the next with a break of 102, and went on to lead 6-0.
When it finally came, Lee's response was emphatic, as a total clearance of 140 opened his account. He didn't pot a ball in the last of the night, however, as Williams won it with a break of 67.
Williams is the odds on favourite to win his second world title, to add to the world number one ranking which he will definitely regain when the annual list is published at the end of the championship.
The 28-year-old also has a chance to complete a clean sweep of the game's three biggest titles, having already won the UK Championship and the Masters this season.
(Best of 33 frames)
Paul Hunter (Eng) leads Ken Doherty (Irl) 6-2
Frame scores (Hunter first): 66-33, 93-17, 0-71, 67-32, 90-33,
62-70, 57-43, 73-30.
Mark Williams (Wal) leads Stephen Lee (Eng) 7-1
Frame scores (Williams first): 65-61, 113-19, 62-47, 69-39,
74-33, 61-32, 4-140, 95-0.
Today's Order of Play: 10.0: Doherty v Hunter; 2.30: Williams v Lee; 6.45: Doherty v Hunter.
