Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stuart Bingham are locked at 4-4 after the first session of their World Snooker Championship quarter-final, with neither hitting top form.
The Rocket has not really found his best stuff yet this tournament and that continued on Tuesday afternoon.
Bingham settled early, taking the first two frames with two half-centuries, then make another one in the third but broke down and O’Sullivan stepped in with a 66.
Ballrun was looking good still, knocking a 79 to take a 3-1 lead, but things really started to slow down for him from there.
O’Sullivan pounced on mistakes, with breaks of 116 and 70 as he won the next three frames, although it wasn’t without frustration, slapping his cue against the rail in the sixth after missing an easy red.
Bingham missed chances in those three frames but he found some fluency in the last of the session, knocking in another half-century to end the afternoon level at 4-4.
‘Neither have been anywhere near the top of their game this afternoon,’ reckoned Stephen Hendry on the BBC. ‘So it’s a fair result.’
On the other table, Kyren Wilson made a blistering start to his quarter-final with John Higgins, making breaks of 70, 95, 93 and 71 to win the first four frames.
Higgins came through an epic 13-12 win over Mark Allen on Monday night and may have been suffering a bit of a comedown from that, but he burst into life in the fifth.
A 129 from the Scot, saw Wilson respond with a 121 and then Higgins make a 73 to take the score to 5-2 in the Englishman’s favour.
The Wizard was really working his magic by this point, though, and made a fantastic break of 102 to close the deficit to two frames at 5-3 behind.
In the morning session on Tuesday there were two contrasting contests, with one dead level and the other very one-sided.
Dave Gilbert opened up a commanding 7-1 lead over Stephen Maguire thanks to an excellent performance in the first session.
The Angry Farmer made breaks of 130, 110 and 83 while he also won close frames, claiming two frames in which Maguire made a 60+ break.
In a race to 13 there is a chance Gilbert could get the match done on Tuesday evening with a session to spare.
In contrast, Judd Trump and Jak Jones were locked level at 4-4 after their first session, with the underdog ahead for much of it.
Trump took the first frame with a brilliant 110, but then Jones reeled off three frames, with breaks of 69 and 94.
The next two frames were shared and it looked like the Welshman would take a lead into the evening as Trump needed a snooker in the eighth. However, he found it and ended up doubling in the final black to end the session 4-4.
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