Wizard Leads The Warrior

John Higgins secured a 5-3 lead in his semi-final meeting with Kyren Wilson at the Betfred World Championship.

Despite emerging with the advantage, Higgins may feel he missed an opportunity to establish a bigger cushion after leading 3-0 and 4-1.

The match is a repeat of last year’s quarter-final clash between the pair. On that occasion Higgins stormed to a comfortable 13-6 victory and he came out of the blocks this afternoon in a similarly dominant manner.

There were no signs of tiredness in the early stages from four-time World Champion Higgins following his epic 13-12 quarter-final win over Judd Trump last night. The Scot took the first three frames with breaks of 57, 65, 77 as Wilson toiled in the early stages of his first appearance in the one-table semi-finals at the Crucible.

The Warrior earned his spot in the last four thanks to a comprehensive 13-6 win over Masters champion Mark Allen in the quarters. He crucially got off the mark this afternoon in the last frame before the mid-session to make it 3-1.

When they returned Wilson had looked set to move within a frame. He strung together a run of 61 before missing a tricky red. Higgins then landed a big blow with a trademark clearance of 62 to steal the frame.

Wilson began to settle into the match and after taking the sixth frame, he fired in a sublime run of 140 to make it 4-3. The 26-year-old was in position to come out of the session level when he led the final frame 44-16, but he spurned the opportunity and Higgins cleared with a break of 40 to edge the session.

They will return to what is a finely poised tie tomorrow morning at 10am for the second of four sessions.