Lisowski Into Quarters With Fine Finish
Jack Lisowski made back-to-back centuries in the last two frames as he came from 5-4 down to beat Martin Gould 6-5 at the International Championship.
Lisowski will now meet close friend Judd Trump in the quarter-finals in Daqing. It will be their fifth meeting in a ranking event within the past 20 months, Trump winning three of the previous four matches.
Gould came from 4-2 down today to lead 5-4 with a top break of 139, only for world number 21 Lisowski to finish superbly with runs of 103 and 106.
“He shut me out from 4-2 to 5-4 then I made two great breaks in the last two frames so I’m very happy with my performance,” said Lisowski after taking another step towards the top 16 in the race to the Masters. “It’s a lovely feeling in the last frame when you reach 70, you know you have won and you’re just potting the last few balls.
“The tables are playing so nice this week, the white ball goes exactly where you hit it, the cushions are lovely, the pockets are playing slightly generous because the conditions are so good. There has been a lot of high scoring but you still have to pot the balls.
“I played Judd at the English Open and it wasn’t a good game. Tomorrow I expect we’ll both be really good or rubbish. I don’t like playing him because he’s my best mate. We just have to ignore each other for three hours. We are used to it because we have been playing each other for years. I’ll probably go for breakfast with him and then after that we’ll stay apart until the match.”
Trump scored an impressive 6-1 win over Yan Bingtao with a top run of 104 and has now conceded just two frames in his three matches this week.
“Jack has been doing well recently so we are meeting a lot more,” said Trump. “If I don’t win a tournament then I’d want him to win it. But this time I want to push on. He has taken longer than me to break though but now he is reaching the later stages of every tournament and it’s only a matter of time before he wins one. There’s more pressure on me than him because everyone expects me to beat him every time. So in a way I have nothing to gain. Hopefully I can just go out there and relax.”
Mark Selby kept up his bid to win this title for a third consecutive year as he beat Stuart Carrington 6-3. From 3-2 down, world number one Selby won four frames in a row with top breaks of 85, 77 and 53. He now meets Neil Robertson or Yuan Sijun.
Martin O’Donnell thrashed David Gilbert 6-1 to reach a ranking quarter-final for the second time in his career – having done so for the first time at last month’s China Championship. World number 66 O’Donnell made breaks of 55, 59 and 64 as he earned a match with Ding Junhui or Matthew Stevens.