Hendry happy with performance

Stephen Hendry showed no mercy to his close friend Mark Williams by knocking him out of the Travis Perkins UK Championship with a 9-3 drubbing in York today.

It meant more snooker misery for the Welshman, who was the game’s dominant player three years ago but his subsequent fall from grace means he is struggling to retain his place among the elite top 16 for next season.

The scoreline of the third-round match was somewhat flattering to Hendry, however, for he admitted he had enjoyed much more ’run’ than his opponent and it appeared that if anything could go wrong for Williams then it would.

The Scot led 6-2 overnight and needed only one significant break, a 90, today to wrap up a quarter-final meeting with world number 19 Ali Carter.

“You don’t expect to win 9-3 against someone as good as Mark Williams,” said the six times former winner of this title, the last occasion being in 1996.

“But Mark isn’t playing as well as he can and isn’t as confident as he was. The long pots he usually produces aren’t there at the moment.

“I played pretty solidly and had good ’run’. There were a couple of really big flukes that let me in to win frames.”

World champion Shaun Murphy was level at 4-4 after a tight first session against Australian rising star Neil Robertson.

The duo won alternate frames, Robertson always edging ahead before Murphy restored parity, with the Englishman compiling four half-century breaks to his opponent’s two.

In the battle of last year’s two losing semi-finalists, Mark King, conqueror of world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan on Saturday, opened a 6-2 lead over an out-of-sorts Joe Perry, ending the session on a high by knocking in a 136.