Here is the report shared by WST about day 2 at the 2025 Players Championship in Telford:

Magician Closing In On Crucible Berth

Shaun Murphy moved to the verge of Crucible qualification with a crucial 6-4 win over Barry Hawkins at the Sportsbet.io Players Championship in Telford.

The Magician was Players Champion and Tour Champion two years ago, but a disappointing 23/24 campaign saw him miss out on qualification for both events.

As a result, Johnstone’s Paint Masters champion Murphy had a mountain to climb in order to retain his place in the top 16. He has enjoyed an impressive campaign, and if Chris Wakelin loses to John Higgins tomorrow, then Murphy will be guaranteed a place in the final stages of the World Championship.

Hawkins has been runner-up at both the Victorian Plumbing UK Championship and the BetVictor German Masters this season and despite today’s loss he will be in Manchester for the series finale at the Tour Championship.

Murphy got off to a flying start this evening, breaks of 68, 58 and 70 helped him to assume a 3-0 advantage. Hawkins then fired in 80 in the fourth to remain in the running at 3-1 down.

The first frame after the interval went the way of Hawkins courtesy of a 108 break, but Murphy took the sixth to move 4-2 ahead.

Hawkins showed his steel by taking two on the bounce to level, before Murphy blitzed to the line with breaks of 71 and 123 to come through with a 6-4 win. He now faces a mouth watering quarter-final with Judd Trump.

“Making sure I was in the 16 seeds for the Crucible has been on my mind for months. I’ve been aware of this problem. I knew I had a lot of ground to make up. That was why I wanted to get into this series of events so much. They are so lucrative to be in that if you miss this then it is a real handicap,” said 2005 World Champion Murphy.

“Nobody wants the embarrassment of being the Masters Champion but having to qualify for the World Championship. I think I have just about avoided it. Now I have that monkey off my back, I hope I can push hard to try and win this week and at the Tour Championship.

“It was a tough game today. Only the top 16 performers are in this event. Every single match could be your last. Barry and I have had so many good battles over the years. We are good friends and it is difficult playing one of your mates. I thought we put on a good show tonight and provided good value for money.”

World number one Trump earned his passage to the quarter-finals with a 6-2 defeat of Lei Peifan.

Trump has enjoyed yet another tremendous campaign. He’s already racked up silverware at the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters and the UK Championship, as well as the invitational Shanghai Masters.

The Englishman made breaks of 80, 114, 74 and 139 this evening and is now looking forward to locking horns with Murphy in the last eight

Trump said: “It is always enjoyable against Shaun. He goes for his shots and you know you have to score well. I think he has become a bit more ruthless in the last season, since starting working with Peter Ebdon. It will be a tough game to play and I will need to play well to beat him.”

I watched very little of the Players Championship action, mainly because I spent a lot of time yesterday marking the EBSA Championship scores for snooker.org. I just watched a bit of the Judd Trump v Lei Peifan match and it wasn’t very interesting mainly because Lei wasn’t playing well at all. I’m not suggesting that, had Lei played better, he would have won because Judd has is very strong at the moment, just that there was no real contest and actually, if anything, Judd didn’t play that well either because he didn’t need to.

In many ways the EBSA Championship interests me more that the Players Championship. There are some very, very good young players involved, and many of them from mainland Europe. A lot of matches are streamed on Youtube as well and many are really interesting to watch. There are 16 tables in operation and six of them are streamed.

Maybe the most extraordinary match yesterday was this one:

This was a match played in the “men competition” between two very young teenagers, and refereed by another teenager. All of them from mainland Europe. Michal won both the under-16 and under-18 events. He’s only 14 and a massive talent. Mikayel is even younger, only 13 years old. He’s not at Michal’s level (yet) but he’s very, very good as well. The match went to a decider, as you can see. What you can’t see is that decider itself ended on a re-spotted black. Closer than that … doesn’t exist unless the result can be a draw.