We will have an all Chinese final tomorrow in Wuhan. It will be Xiao Guodong vs Si Jiahui. Both finalist came out the winners of rather extraordinary matches.
Xiao Guodong won five straight frames to come from behind and beat Long Zehuang 6-4 in the semi-finals of the Wuhan Open.
Victory for 35-year-old Xiao sees him reach the third ranking final of his career, where he will be chasing his first title triumph. China’s Xiao will face either compatriot Si Jiahui or world number one Judd Trump in tomorrow’s final.
The world number 29 reached a maiden title match back in 2013, when he and Ding Junhui made history at the Shanghai Masters and contested the first ever ranking final between two Chinese players. The match went Ding’s way by a 10-6 scoreline. He was also runner-up to Anthony McGill at the 2017 Shoot Out.
Defeat for Long ends what has been the most significant week of his fledgling career, which is only in its second season. The 27-year-old picked an appropriate event to reach his maiden ranking semi-final, as he comes from Wuhan.
Long beat Mark Selby to qualify and has defeated the likes of Jackson Page and Jack Lisowski out in China this week. Those results delighted his fans and family looking on from the stands, but today proved to be a bridge too far.
When the match got underway it was Long who came flying out of the traps. He registered the highest break of the tournament so far with a run of 141, as well as a contribution of 104, on his way to leading 4-1.
However, from there it was the more experienced Xiao who took charge of proceedings. Five frames on the bounce, including breaks of 130, 112 and 91, were enough to see him blitz from behind to secure the win.
Xiao said: “I’m really happy to make it to the final. Long Zehuang played well today too. Before 4-1 down, he put me under a lot of pressure. Long has only been a professional for two years and I think he has a lot of potential. This tournament in particular will give him a significant boost to his career. His family was here supporting him, and that definitely helped him.
“I remember when myself and Ding became the first players to face each other in a ranking final back in 2013. It attracted a lot of attention. Now that I’ve reached another final here, I hope to see more Chinese players making it this far in home tournaments. This would show that snooker in China has a very bright future. For the younger players, every improvement is an inspiration. Now, Ding doesn’t have as much pressure as before, when he was carrying it all by himself back then.“
We will see more of Long I’m sure. He will be disappointed today, but hopefully in a few days he will be able to take stock of all the positives this week brought him. He should be proud of himself, despite today’s defeat.
The evening match produced an unexpected but totally deserved result. Si Jiahui defeated Judd Trump by 6-2, in a very high quality match and he scored a 147, his first, in the process.
Si Jiahui produced the performance of his career so far with a 6-2 victory over world number one Judd Trump in the semi-finals of the Wuhan Open.
An incredible display saw the Chinese 22-year-old rack up 672 points, including three centuries and the first ever 147 break of his career.
The landmark result has seen Si score a first ever victory over Trump. Coming into today Si had lost their previous six meetings, including this year’s German Masters final.
He now faces the prospect of the third all-Chinese ranking final in the history of snooker against Xiao Guodong. The pair will do battle over the best of 19 frames in tomorrow’s title match, where a top prize of £140,000 will be on the line. Both players are gunning for a maiden ranking title.
Trump departs having continued his relentless consistency, which has seen him surge clear at the top of the world rankings. The Ace in the Pack has reached at least the quarter-finals in every single ranking event in 2024 and has already won the Shanghai Masters and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters this season.
It was Trump who started this evening’s match at an electric pace, with a century run of 109 to take the opener. However, Si responded in devastating fashion with 144 and 61 to move 2-1 ahead. He then produced a moment of pure magic, with a 147 maximum break to send his home fans into raptures and head into the mid-session 3-1 ahead.
When play resumed, Trump had the first opportunity, but could only muster 59. That wasn’t enough, as Si ruthlessly punished with a frame winning run of 81.
Trump showed some resistance with a break of 89 in the sixth to make it 4-2. However, further contributions of 108 and 71 helped Si complete a remarkable victory.
“This time I kept a calm mindset playing against Judd. I’ve lost a lot of matches whilst making 60+ breaks against him before, so I didn’t think too much about beating him. I just focused on learning from him and playing my own game. Today, I didn’t feel much pressure, so I played very smoothly,” said world number 13 Si.
“I’d give myself nine out of ten for the performance, with one point off for my safeties. My safety play was still pretty poor and I feel like that’s the area I need to focus on improving the most. In terms of potting and other aspects, I’ve been getting better with each match.
“Luck was on my side and I’m really happy to have made a 147. I’ve seen a lot of professional players make their first and second maximum breaks, but I hadn’t even made one. I’ve been eager to score one and today I finally did it.”
Afterwards, Trump was philosophical about the result, but waxed lyrical about the potential of his counterpart.
Trump said: “This is the best performance there has been against me, by quite far. Apart from maybe John Higgins and the odd Ronnie performance, this is as well as you can play. He wasn’t even touching the knuckles, everything was going in clean. It was like an exhibition game for him at the end. He was enjoying it so much and would have wanted to stay out there all night.
“From what I’ve seen he is an absolute mile clear of anyone his age or within five years of him. It is difficult to keep playing like that, but it shows he has got it in there. Now people have seen that, there will be a lot more pressure on him to win the World Championship and win events.”
SI MAKES STUNNING MAXIMUM
There isn’t much to add. Si Jiahui played close to perfection in large spells in this match, as Judd Trump duly acknowledged. If he can play that way tomorrow, he should win the tournament.
But, of course, tomorrow is another day and Xiao Guodong is the more experienced of the two. Both will feel pressure for sure, playing in a final in their own country, China. Xiao Guodong has already experienced such pressure as mentioned in the WST report above. He was involved in the first ever all Chinese ranking final and it was on home soil too, in Shanghai. For Si Jiahui it’s an entirely new territory but this young man seems to have a solid head on his young shoulders. It will be fascinating.
2 thoughts on “The 2024 Wuhan Open – Day 6 – Semi-finals”
I disagree slightly about the psychological state of the two finalists. Xiao had that experience playing against Ding, but it was 11 years ago and is a distant memory. Si Jiahui reached the final of the German Masters earlier this year, so there is a recent experience from which he can build. He will know how to sleep, how to prepare for the 2-session final. He’s played some big matches in China already and will be used to the Chinese crowd, which won’t be so partisan as there are two Chinese players in the final anyway. But for Xiao, this is surely the best chance he will have to win a tournament, and perhaps the last chance – he will put himself under a lot of pressure. For Si Jiahui, he will feel there will be many more finals, and World Championships to play in. It won’t be a disaster if he loses this one.
Yesterday, Long Zehuang just ran out of steam. It’s very tough to keep winning matches without prior experience. The nervous energy ususlly catches up with. Xiao Guodong was lucky, as he started so poorly he might have had no chance to recover if against a top player.
Si Jiahui’s performance was rightly lauded – it was magnificent. If he can produce that standard regularly, he will quickly become a genuine top player, and is still improving. We should be a little careful – just a couple of weeks ago we were also celebrating the talents of Wu Yize. The fact is, there are a number of young players who have the ability to be top players going into the 2030’s. It looks like Stan Moody will stay on tour, and there are some highly promising rookies.
Si Jiahui really is an exciting young player and it was great to see him bring his A game to the table against Judd Trump. In the games they played before he played good in stretches but lacked the necessary consistency. Let’s see whether he can keep it up tomorrow.
The Independent has published another article and interview with Ronnie and he repeats what he has said before. He is just not feeling it at the moment a he doesn’t want to invest too much time and effort into it at the moment. Whether he will return in November remains to be seen. Several factors probably play a role. The game doesn’t come as easy to him for quite some time and not having a break after the World Championship because of the exhibitions he loves so much has probably also had some impact on him. He is taking the much needed break now. I am really curious whether he will develop the hunger and desire to win again. Probably it is not so easy after everthing he has already achieved in his career. He once said that he loves it when people count him out because then he wants to prove everyone wrong. And he also said that people shouldn’t say that he is done because he will tell everyone when the time has come. I am really looking forward to finding out how the final act of Ronnie’s career will pan out. Here is the Independent article:
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
I disagree slightly about the psychological state of the two finalists. Xiao had that experience playing against Ding, but it was 11 years ago and is a distant memory. Si Jiahui reached the final of the German Masters earlier this year, so there is a recent experience from which he can build. He will know how to sleep, how to prepare for the 2-session final. He’s played some big matches in China already and will be used to the Chinese crowd, which won’t be so partisan as there are two Chinese players in the final anyway. But for Xiao, this is surely the best chance he will have to win a tournament, and perhaps the last chance – he will put himself under a lot of pressure. For Si Jiahui, he will feel there will be many more finals, and World Championships to play in. It won’t be a disaster if he loses this one.
Yesterday, Long Zehuang just ran out of steam. It’s very tough to keep winning matches without prior experience. The nervous energy ususlly catches up with. Xiao Guodong was lucky, as he started so poorly he might have had no chance to recover if against a top player.
Si Jiahui’s performance was rightly lauded – it was magnificent. If he can produce that standard regularly, he will quickly become a genuine top player, and is still improving. We should be a little careful – just a couple of weeks ago we were also celebrating the talents of Wu Yize. The fact is, there are a number of young players who have the ability to be top players going into the 2030’s. It looks like Stan Moody will stay on tour, and there are some highly promising rookies.
Si Jiahui really is an exciting young player and it was great to see him bring his A game to the table against Judd Trump. In the games they played before he played good in stretches but lacked the necessary consistency. Let’s see whether he can keep it up tomorrow.
The Independent has published another article and interview with Ronnie and he repeats what he has said before. He is just not feeling it at the moment a he doesn’t want to invest too much time and effort into it at the moment. Whether he will return in November remains to be seen. Several factors probably play a role. The game doesn’t come as easy to him for quite some time and not having a break after the World Championship because of the exhibitions he loves so much has probably also had some impact on him. He is taking the much needed break now. I am really curious whether he will develop the hunger and desire to win again. Probably it is not so easy after everthing he has already achieved in his career. He once said that he loves it when people count him out because then he wants to prove everyone wrong. And he also said that people shouldn’t say that he is done because he will tell everyone when the time has come. I am really looking forward to finding out how the final act of Ronnie’s career will pan out. Here is the Independent article:
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/snooker/ronnie-osullivan-interview-exclusive-hendry-davis-b2627837.html