World Championship: Hawkins quick to end Ding Junhui's Crucible hopes

BARRY HAWKINS booked his place in the semi-finals of the Betfred World Championship with a ruthless demolition of third seed Ding Junhui.
TAKE A BREAK: Barry Hawkins during his match against Ding Junhui at The Crucible. Picture: Tim Goode/PATAKE A BREAK: Barry Hawkins during his match against Ding Junhui at The Crucible. Picture: Tim Goode/PA
TAKE A BREAK: Barry Hawkins during his match against Ding Junhui at The Crucible. Picture: Tim Goode/PA

Hawkins took an 11-5 lead into the final session at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield and wasted no time in securing the two frames required to reach the last four.

The 39-year-old left-hander won a scrappy 17th frame as a woefully out-of-sorts Ding continued to miss easy balls, but then finished a surprisingly one-sided contest in style with a break of 117.

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Hawkins has now reached the semi-finals or better in five of the last six years, but was not about to take anything for granted ahead of a semi-final against either Mark Williams or Ali Carter.

Ding Junhui during his match against Barry Hawkins at The Crucible. Picture: Tim Goode/PADing Junhui during his match against Barry Hawkins at The Crucible. Picture: Tim Goode/PA
Ding Junhui during his match against Barry Hawkins at The Crucible. Picture: Tim Goode/PA

“I’m in the semis but there’s still such a long way to go and there’s still some great players in,” said Hawkins.

“I’m not getting too excited, I’ve been here before and I know what it’s like to go out there and play terrible so it can happen at any time.

“I’m obviously over the moon to get through and I thought I played pretty well. I felt like he gave up at the end there.

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“I thought I punished him every time he made a mistake and when someone’s doing that against you, it’s easy to start to missing a few and I managed to keep him under a bit of pressure because he hadn’t been until then. There’s a lot on his shoulders as well.”

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