Doherty needs another big comeback

Ken Doherty will have to manufacture a comeback that would surpass even his semi-final success over Paul Hunter if he is to deny Mark Williams a second Embassy World Championship crown at The Crucible Theatre.

Williams will go into the second day of the best-of-35-frame final holding a formidable-looking 11-5 advantage over the 1997 champion.

Doherty described his revival from 15-9 down to defeat Hunter 17-16 as “the greatest recovery of my career” but it is difficult to imagine him repeating that against Williams, who is now back at number one in the world rankings.

Williams has been the best player on show during the past fortnight and, as in his semi-final success over Stephen Lee, he made sure of quickly imprinting his authority on proceedings by winning the first session 7-1.

Doherty may be made of sterner stuff, as demonstrated not only against Hunter but in last frame wins against Shaun Murphy (10-9) and Graham Dott (13-12).

He showed that mettle again when, after trailing 10-2 at the mid session interval, he managed to win three of the remaining four frames.

But Williams is unlikely to buckle in the same way as Hunter, a rookie in terms of playing in the latter stages of snooker’s blue riband competition.

The statistics show that he needs to win just seven of the remaining 19 frames to collect the £270,000 first prize.

That would also enable Williams to emulate Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry in winning the triple crown of the UK Championship, The Masters and the world title in the same season.

Doherty had to make early inroads in the evening session and he gave himself a glimmer of a hope by taking the first frame with the aid of a run of 47 to the final blue.

But it was a false dawn for the 33-year-old, who went into the final having figured in a mind-sapping 98 frames during the competition compared to the 72 of Williams who has effortlessly waltzed through to the final.

Doherty paid the penalty for missing a long red in the next and he had to stay in his chair as Williams put together a 118 clearance to the black.

Breaks of 40 and 31 were sufficient to give Williams the next and then a 101 in frame 12 left him in total command at the interval.

But Doherty showed that Williams will have to earn his success when he came back into the arena and a 79 break reduced the deficit to 10-3.

Then in the next he found himself trailing 69-0 with just five reds left but manufactured the snooker he needed and then cleared the last four colours to win 70-69.

There were no significant breaks in the 15th frame with Williams accumulating steadily as Doherty failed to trouble the scorers.

But the Dubliner again came from behind in the last frame of the session after Williams had missed a relatively easy brown when leading 49-4.

Doherty held his nerve and a 50 clearance to the black ensured he shared the honours in the evening session but has a mountain to climb on Monday.