Third time lucky for Milkins

Robert Milkins made it third time lucky against Dave Harold tonight to reach the Failte Irish Masters semi-finals at the Citywest Hotel, Dublin.

Twice before Milkins had failed in his attempt to gain the first last four appearance of his pro career – but this evening it all came right for the world number 28 from Gloucester.

The 29-year-old defeated Harold 6-3 and now plays Matthew Stevens for a place in Sunday’s final.

The turning point came in frame five with Harold, conqueror of Peter Ebdon and Jimmy White, set to go 3-2 up after being 2-0 down.

However, he miscued when leading 57-0 and Milkins stepped in with a 55 clearance.

He doubled his advantage with a quickfire century and later added runs of 73 and 85 to seal his win.

Milkins explained: “I got myself in a good position at 2-0 and then just lost my head.

“That clearance got me started again and after that I didn’t look back.

“I’m chuffed to bits to get to the semi-finals – I lost 5-4 to Steve Davis in the Welsh Open last season after being 4-3 up and I didn’t want to chuck it away again this time.”

Milkins’ only other quarter-final came at the 2002 UK Championship, losing to Peter Ebdon after knocking out Stevens 9-8 in the previous round.

Defeat signalled the end of Harold’s recent seven-game winning streak.

The loser said: “It had to end some time and Rob scored that heavily when he got in.

“In my opinion he scores quicker than Tony Drago ever did.”

Earlier, Stevens recovered from 5-3 down to beat Stephen Hendry 6-5.

In tomorrow’s quarter-finals Mark Williams meets Stephen Lee and title favourite Ronnie O’Sullivan faces Gerard Greene.