Doherty's fighting spirit not enough

In touch until the final session last night, Ken Doherty's run in this year's World Championship finally came to an end at the Crucible.

Having chased his quarterfinal match against 1998 champion John Higgins from the time he lost a 3-1 lead in the first session, Doherty twice came within a frame of the Scot before some wonderful break-building from Higgins combined with his ability to grind out the closer frames finally swung the match in the 25-year-old's favour and he won 13-6.

Higgins punished Doherty for each of his misdemeanours and tended to answer every move with an exceptional response.

Doherty, the seventh seed, won two ranking tournaments in the run-up to Sheffield, and may have peaked three weeks ago. He opened the evening session winning from a 55 break, only to see Higgins respond with a 110 in the next frame.

From 40 down in the next frame Doherty again fought back to 6-5. Higgins then did it again, this time with a break of 139, his highest of the competition and second only to Joe Swail's 140.

The Irishman, the 1997 champion, could have gone into the interval just 9-7 down but lost position at 47-12 and again Higgins wrestled the frame from his grasp to lead 10-6. That was perhaps the pivotal blow and left Doherty with a huge task.

Higgins then moved to 11-6 despite a 53-0 start from Doherty and from there the Irishman's effort perished, Higgins ending with a flourishing 105, his fourth century of the match.

"I lost three or four games on the pink or black. They were crucial." said Doherty afterwards. "Every time he was getting in, he was making big breaks. The last frame of today's session was vitally important when it finished 10-6 rather than 9-7. I lost a few tight frames that could have made the match a lot closer.

"After the first session I was always playing catch-up and I couldn't get level. I was trying my hardest to draw level and put a bit more pressure on him and then when I got within one frame he seemed to pull away again. But he seemed to be cueing very well and was scoring very, very heavily.

"He's got a great all-round game. He has to be playing just about as well as anyone else I've seen. Although he hasn't had the best of seasons coming into this, his pedigree is there. He's won here before," he said.

Higgins' semi-final opponent is Matthew Stevens, who destroyed seven-times world champion Stephen Hendry.

The magnitude of Hendry's defeat must now question whether the best player in the history of the game will ever win at the Crucible again. Stevens, who had an overnight lead of 11-5, rattled off the first two frames of the day in less than 32 minutes for 13-5 to become the first player to reach the last four.

"He's doing what I used to do to players. I've dished out plenty of punishment and I'm big enough to take it," said a stoical Hendry after the match.

"Someone is going to have to be outstanding or he's going to have to have an awful big dip in form not to win it. If he hasn't got the best cue action, then it's close to the best cue action in the world. I was outplayed in all departments."

Stevens, whose long potting was one of his stronger features throughout the match, has had little problem getting to finals but has appeared decidedly frail in the endgames and has lost seven deciding frames this season.

"I've still got a lot to prove to myself," said Stevens. "Coming into the tournament I haven't really been mentioned. Maybe that took a bit of pressure off," he said.

Stevens was quickly joined in the £73,000 round by Ronnie O'Sullivan, who ably demonstrated why, as he had publicly stated, Peter Ebdon would not win this year's championship.

Regarded by his peers as the most talented player of his generation, although not necessarily the best, O'Sullivan fought it out with the flinty Ebdon to end the first session 4-4.

Typically without warning, O'Sullivan then turned up the tempo, winning the entire eight frames of the middle session for a 12-4 advantage. Breaks of 108, 67, 89, 54, 65, and 72 peppered the demonstration which essentially ended the contest. It took O'Sullivan three frames yesterday afternoon to clinch the one necessary for outright victory.

O'Sullivan's transcendental passage of play even launched Ebdon into a type of semi-poetic stream of consciousness, which almost matched the peerless second session of "the Rocket". "I felt very good today, but was completely shut out of the game," Ebdon said. "Ronnie was just very, very special. He's snooker's equivalent to Mozart. Through creative imagination, he has almost got a link to the infinite intelligence. He's totally in the state of genius. There's no two ways about it."

Yesterday's Details Quarter-finals: (6) M Stevens (Wal) bt (3) S Hendry (Sco) 13-5. Frame scores (Stevens first): 84-41 18-92 79-54 87-7 70-8 71-22 0-106 (106 break) 62-25 134-8 (134 break) 38-80 74-0 70-33 64-30 7-84 85-43 1-68 66-31 70-10.

(4) R O'Sullivan (Eng) bt (12) P Ebdon (Eng) 136. Frame scores (O'Sullivan 1st): 6-108 77-0 4101(101 break) 82-6 67-8 60-61 0-98 112-0(108 break) 83-44 89-5 69-1 70-59 119-0 72-64 77-50 83-44 4-108 4-67 70-32.

(2) J Higgins (Sco) bt K Doherty (Irl) 13-6. Frame scores (Higgins first): 54-67 58-47 0-114 095 72-18 70-48 99-0 62-17 48-74 111-7 42-82 139-0 110-0 47-63 118-1 54-47 62-53 60-46 105-16