Stunning Wilson Downs Williams

Kyren Wilson produced a sublime display of break building to defeat Mark Williams 5-1 and reach the semi-finals of the Yushan World Open.

Wilson dominated proceedings by stringing together a run of 503 unanswered points. The streak was just 44 points short of Stuart Bingham’s ranking event record of 547. The 25-year-old has extra cause for celebration, having witnessed the birth of his second son Bailey shortly before travelling to Yushan.

Williams came into the encounter as one of the form players on the World Snooker Tour. He recently lifted the Six Red World title in Bangkok and had only dropped one frame this week on his way to the last eight.

The Welshman set the tone for what was to come today with a run of 121 to take the opener. However, from there it was the world number 13 Wilson who imposed himself on the game. Consecutive runs of 102, 127, 71 and 135 saw him move to the verge of victory. A break of 48 helped him to take the final frame and burst over the line.

“It’s got to be one of my best games ever,” said the 2015 Shanghai Masters winner. “It’s nice to finally produce what I am capable of. I play like that in practice a lot so it is nice to do it on a big stage against a very good player.”

Mark Allen will face Wilson in the semi-finals after defeating David Gibert 5-1 in his semi-final encounter.

Allen has hit a much needed run of form, with his position in the provisional end of season rankings set to drop. The Antrim potter will lose the money accumulated from his 2015 Players Championship victory at the end of the season and is currently projected to end the season ranked 23rd in the world, so he requires some big performances before then.

Allen remarked: “I started very well today and made it tough for David early on and that was the damage done.

“It’s going to be a good game. In 2015 Kyren beat me in the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters and I beat him in the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions. We always have close games.”