Saturday 5 December 2015

2015 UK Championship Semi Finals Day 11

Liang Wenbo 6-4 David Grace

China's Liang Wenbo reached Sunday's UK Championship final with a scrappy 6-4 victory over world number 81 David Grace.

The 28-year-old started nervously and Yorkshireman Grace took advantage to open up a 3-1 lead at the break.

Liang, world ranked 29, recovered from 4-2 down to take the next four frames and reach only a second ranking final.

Despite winning the opening frame, Romford-based Liang looked a different player from the one who racked up three successive centuries against Hong Kong's Marco Fu in the quarter-finals.

He appeared edgy as being favourite, occasionally slapping his own face as his frustrations boiled over.

Grace, who cleans snooker tables to supplement his earnings, won three frames in a row with a highest break of just 52 as the contest took a while to warm up a capacity crowd in York.

Liang, whose only other ranking final was the Shanghai Masters in 2009, banged in a match-best 110 break in the first frame after the interval to reduce the arrears, but Grace opened up a two-frame lead again to lead 4-2.

The Chinese won two further scrappy frames to level the match in the eighth before a crucial 50 break gave him the lead for the first time since the opening frame.


He let a comfortable lead slip in the 11th, but Grace missed a simple pink when he had to clear the colours.



Neil Robertson 6-0 Mark Selby

Australia's Neil Robertson whitewashed world number one Mark Selby to set up a UK Championship final against Liang Wenbo at York's Barbican on Sunday.

Robertson stormed into a 4-0 interval lead and continued to pounce on errors to claim a 6-0 victory.

The world number three said: "I nicked a few frames and played well at the business end of frames."

World number 29 Liang, who has never won a ranking event, beat David Grace 6-4 in the other semi-final.


In reaching the final, the Chinese has jumped into the top 16 in the world which qualifies him a place at next month's Masters.

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