Si Jiahui produced the performance of his career so far with a 6-2 victory over world number one Judd Trump in the semi-finals of the Wuhan Open.
An incredible display saw the Chinese 22-year-old rack up 672 points, including three centuries and the first ever 147 break of his career.
The landmark result has seen Si score a first ever victory over Trump. Coming into today Si had lost their previous six meetings, including this year’s German Masters final.
He now faces the prospect of the third all-Chinese ranking final in the history of snooker against Xiao Guodong. The pair will do battle over the best of 19 frames in tomorrow’s title match, where a top prize of £140,000 will be on the line. Both players are gunning for a maiden ranking title.
Trump departs having continued his relentless consistency, which has seen him surge clear at the top of the world rankings. The Ace in the Pack has reached at least the quarter-finals in every single ranking event in 2024 and has already won the Shanghai Masters and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters this season.
It was Trump who started this evening’s match at an electric pace, with a century run of 109 to take the opener. However, Si responded in devastating fashion with 144 and 61 to move 2-1 ahead. He then produced a moment of pure magic, with a 147 maximum break to send his home fans into raptures and head into the mid-session 3-1 ahead.
When play resumed, Trump had the first opportunity, but could only muster 59. That wasn’t enough, as Si ruthlessly punished with a frame winning run of 81.
Trump showed some resistance with a break of 89 in the sixth to make it 4-2. However, further contributions of 108 and 71 helped Si complete a remarkable victory.
“This time I kept a calm mindset playing against Judd. I’ve lost a lot of matches whilst making 60+ breaks against him before, so I didn’t think too much about beating him. I just focused on learning from him and playing my own game. Today, I didn’t feel much pressure, so I played very smoothly,” said world number 13 Si.
“I’d give myself nine out of ten for the performance, with one point off for my safeties. My safety play was still pretty poor and I feel like that’s the area I need to focus on improving the most. In terms of potting and other aspects, I’ve been getting better with each match.
“Luck was on my side and I’m really happy to have made a 147. I’ve seen a lot of professional players make their first and second maximum breaks, but I hadn’t even made one. I’ve been eager to score one and today I finally did it.”
Afterwards, Trump was philosophical about the result, but waxed lyrical about the potential of his counterpart.
Trump said: “This is the best performance there has been against me, by quite far. Apart from maybe John Higgins and the odd Ronnie performance, this is as well as you can play. He wasn’t even touching the knuckles, everything was going in clean. It was like an exhibition game for him at the end. He was enjoying it so much and would have wanted to stay out there all night.
“From what I’ve seen he is an absolute mile clear of anyone his age or within five years of him. It is difficult to keep playing like that, but it shows he has got it in there. Now people have seen that, there will be a lot more pressure on him to win the World Championship and win events.”