STEPHEN HENDRY today threatened to make it two 147 maximum breaks in two days in the 888.com World Snooker Championship in Sheffield.
Just hours after Ronnie O'Sullivan's clearance, Hendry potted 14 reds and 14 blacks in the fourth frame of his quarter-final with Wales' Ryan Day. But the Scot then missed the final red to end his chances of sharing the £147,000 bonus for a maximum
and the £10,000 for the highest break of the tournament. The break of 112 was still enough to give the seven-time champion a 3-1 lead at the mid-session interval after Day had taken the opening frame with a break of 66.
On the other table, Ali Carter had a 2-1 lead over Peter Ebdon, Carter taking the first two frames with breaks of 50 and 57 before Ebdon hit back with runs of 50 and 61 in the third.
O'Sullivan, meanwhile, takes on Chinese qualifier Liang Wenbo in the last eight at the Crucible after sealing a 13-7 second round win over Mark Williams with his sensational 147. It was only the seventh maximum at the venue and O'Sullivan has now made three of them and a record nine in competition. But afterwards O'Sullivan revealed he is not always 100 per cent focused on snooker and even felt he was going to lose to Williams despite taking a 9-7 lead into the final session.
"It would be great to win and lift that trophy, it's every player's dream," O'Sullivan said. "But sometimes I'm sitting in my room and I'm not really bothered if I do. I wish I never had thoughts like that.
"I wish I could be really hungry and block everything from my mind and think 'I'm here to win this tournament' – but sometimes, like this morning, I just packed my bags and thought 'if I lose then I deserve to lose'."
The 21-year-old Liang is making his Crucible debut but accounted for 1997 champion Ken Doherty in the first round and beat Joe Swail 13-12 in a dramatic and controversial second-round clash last night. Liang led by 27 points with only 27 left on the table in the decider but failed to get out of a snooker on the yellow by coming off the side cushion. Swail put Liang back in again but felt veteran referee Alan Chamberlain replaced the white incorrectly, suddenly allowing Liang to hit the yellow directly.
"It's very, very hard to take," said Swail, who had recovered from 12-8 down. "There was absolutely no way he could see the yellow."
The other quarter-final sees Paisley's Stephen Maguire up against Joe Perry.
The full article contains 460 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
