Hunter edges out King

Paul Hunter showed his star quality with Mark King poised to remove another of the title favourites from the Travis Perkins UK Championship in York tonight.

With four of the world’s top eight already out Hunter could have gone the same way as King recovered from 7-4 down to force a deciding frame.

However, the Leeds professional came good to take the match 9-8 and secure a quarter-final against Matthew Stevens or James Wattana.

But the world number eight needed a large slice of good fortune, fluking an outrageous red into the yellow pocket to put him 60-0 clear with 67 left on the table.

Had he missed world number 22 King would have had a great chance to bring him right back into the match.

Instead, the former Welsh Open runner-up did not not notch a point in the decider leaving a grateful Hunter to admit: “You cannot play well all the time and I just had to keep battling away.

“I heard Steve Davis and John Parrott say that best of nines are the toss of a coin. But best of 17s are getting like that now. Everyone is hungry.

“I don’t really enjoy frames like we had in the decider with the balls all over the table.

“Whoever gets in first is going to win. I had to take on a tricky red and fortunately I got lucky.”

King, who resumed today 5-3 down, gave a good account of himself and appears to be recovering from last month’s trauma of seeing his mother jailed for murder.

“I’m not devastated,” he insisted.

“I feel quite good. A lot of people think it’s all about winning but it’s having peace with yourself.

“This has been the first tournament I have fancied coming to and playing well.

“My head has been good and I’m just looking forward to the tournaments in the new year.

“Before then though I’m going straight to my new house, kiss my wife and kids and have a lovely Christmas.”