Ding crushes Higgins to meet Trump at semis of International Championship

China's Ding Junhui stormed a six-frame streak to beat John Higgins 6-2 to reach the semifinals of 2016 World Snooker International Championship here on Thursday.

The defending champion of Daqing made several successful snookers in the first two frames to take an early lead. The Chinese super star, who won the tournament in 2013, dominated the rest of the match with a 6-0 streak to finish the first semifinal within two and half hours. The sixth and the seventh frame witnessed two century breaks of 104 and 130 points.

"Disappointed," said Higgins at the press conference. "I play very bad and Ding play very well, Ding's cue ball control is probably the best of everyone playing snooker, I would say."

Ding will play against Judd Trump on Friday in the semifinal, who went through a pretty tough quarterfinal this afternoon to beat Shaun Murphy 6-5 with three-point advantage.

Two masters tied 1-1, 2-2 and 3-3 before each of them won two frames in a row. The frame time of the decider exceeded 45 minutes with a black ball drama. Trump cut the deficit down to 52-56 after epic defence demonstration of both players. But the cue ball hit the pocket to stop at a awkward position when there were only seven point left on the table. Murphy missed the right top corner to leave the black near the pocket and Trump finished the 11th frame 59-56.

World No. 1 Mark Selby ordered one berth of the final four in the night session, defeating Joe Perry 6-3 while Bingham and Holt fought for the last seat in the semifinals. Endit