Reigning champion Zhao Xintong got to experience the Crucible curse first-hand, as he faced Shaun Murphy in the Snooker World Championship quarter-finals.
Shaun Murphy won the Snooker World Championship in 2005, but like so many other first time champions, he fell to the "Crucible curse", as
Graeme Dott stole his crown the following year.
However, 21 years later the Englishman was firmly on the curse's side, hoping that yet another maiden world title winner would fail in their quest to keep their crown. This was natural, since he was facing reigning World Champion
Zhao Xintong in the quarter-finals.
Zhao had already previously let slip that he was feeling the pressure of the curse and being the reigning champion. This didn't show though at the start of the match, with the Chinese potting machine quickly establishing a 3-0 lead.
Murphy rallied as early as the first session, taking an impressive five consecutive frames to end the session 5-3 in his favour. The duo's second outing at the Crucible continued tightly balanced, as the score remained deadlocked at 8-8 before the deciding session.
The 2005 World Champion is known as "The Magician" in the snooker world, and hew well and truly had left his best tricks for last. The legendary
Steve Davis described Murphy's final session performance in glowing terms.
- It was nigh on the perfect session. I don't think Shaun will have ever played as good a session, it was a super-human performance and it needed that to take out Zhao Xintong, because he wasn't playing badly.
The reigning Champion showed the Crucible some magic of his own during the match, with
Zhao potted three reds with just one shot to astonish the Sheffield crowd. However this was not enough on Wednesday, as Murphy stormed into a 12-9 lead, needing just two opportunities to close out the match from there.
- When you play fantastic players like Zhao Xintong, things become rather straight-forward. At 3-0 I would have bitten off a hand offering a stalemate to end the first session. I got into a good headspace, and I'm delighted with my performance, Murphy told BBC Two after the dust had settled.
The reigning champ wasn't too glum in defeat:
- I did feel some pressure as the reigning champion, but the game felt good. Shaun played excellently putting me under big pressure. He was just potting everything, even the opportunities for difficult long pots I was leaving him.
The
Snooker World Championship 2026 quarter-finals continue tonight at 19:00 BST. Murphy will be watching with great interest, as one of the matches will see his semi-final opponent be revealed from the winner between
John Higgins and
Neil Robertson.
You can watch the closing stages of the match between Zhao and Murphy from the video below.
Source:
BBC 
