Big guns square up for Beijing

John Higgins and Ken Doherty set up a repeat of their recent Malta Cup title clash by marching into the semi-finals of the Star Group China Open in Beijing today.

Higgins, the bookmakers’ favourite to lift his third trophy of the season, scored a 5-2 victory over Joe Perry while Doherty, who edged the Scot 9-8 for the silverware in Malta last month, beat Stephen Lee by the same score.

“I’m really looking forward to playing John again. Let’s hope its another classic,” said Doherty, who fought back from 8-5 down to deny Higgins on the Mediterranean island and is now gunning for an overseas tournament double.

A well rested Higgins, who finally overcame jetlag to slumber for 12 hours following his 5-0 drubbing of Peter Ebdon in the last 16 yesterday, was on course to complete another whitewash when he led Perry 4-0 at the mid-session interval.

Higgins could not have wished for a better start as he stole the opener on the black with a 64 clearance from 56-0 down.

“That break started with a monstrous fluke. I doubled a red across the table playing safe and although it was the first frame it was probably the pivotal moment of the match,” admitted Higgins, who then fired in breaks of 44, 53, 50 and 33 to leave Perry reeling.

But when play re-started after the 15-minute break, Higgins suddenly began to struggle. When he missed a red along the top cushion in frame five Perry put together a run of 88 before shading the sixth on the colours having fluked a snooker on the green.

Perry also had opportunities to add frame seven but after laying an inch-perfect snooker on the yellow, Higgins efficiently cleared the colours to secure the 41st world-ranking event semi-final of his career.

While Higgins quickly took control, Doherty was forced to battle hard to gain an edge against Lee, who revitalised his career by capturing the Welsh Open title in Newport three weeks ago.

Doherty isolated the third frame as the turning point. Lee left a red along the top cushion short of his corner-pocket target and the Irishman eventually potted brown, blue, pink and black to lead 2-1. He never looked back.

“Let’s put it this way, it wasn’t a match that will be kept in a highlight archive,” laughed Doherty.

“It was more a war of attrition than sublime snooker but I’ve won so I can’t grumble. It’s a good result because Stephen’s been playing well lately.”

Doherty is now guaranteed to travel to the season-ending 888.com World Championship at the Crucible next month third in the provisional world rankings having leapfrogged Ronnie O’Sullivan.