Day 1 at the 2025 Tour Championship

Only one match was played to a conclusion yesterday in Manchester, and it was a Barry Hawkins masterclass, at the expense of Shaun Murphy. Here is the report by WST:

Murphy Hammered By ‘Unplayable’ Hawkins

Shaun Murphy suffered one of the biggest defeats of his 27-year career as he lost 10-1 to Barry Hawkins in the opening round of the Sportsbet.io Tour Championship in Manchester.

Not since Murphy lost 13-3 to Ronnie O’Sullivan at the 2014 World Championship has the former Crucible king been beaten by such a heavy margin. He described today’s opponent as “unplayable” as Hawkins reeled off five centuries in the first session. At that stage, Stephen Hendry’s record of seven tons in a best-of-19 match was under threat, but Hawkins was unable to add to his tally in taking the last three frames tonight.

The world number 12 earned a quarter-final clash with Judd Trump on Wednesday, a repeat of their Victorian Plumbing UK Championship final which Hawkins lost narrowly 10-8. He was also runner-up at the Machineseeker German Masters, losing 10-9 to Kyren Wilson, and one of the best seasons of his career could yet be capped with a trophy.

Breaks of 126, 101, 132, 131 and 134 helped Hawkins open up a 7-1 advantage in the first session. He extended his lead with a run of 57 then got the better of a scrappy tenth frame for 9-1, and a break of 59 in the next set up a 51st career ranking event quarter-final.

“I can’t play much better than I did this afternoon,” said 45-year-old Hawkins. “It’s a shame I didn’t beat Hendry’s centuries record, but to beat Shaun 10-1 is unheard of. It doesn’t happen often, to get in that bubble where you don’t feel you are going to miss. After that session my phone was going mad, everyone was texting me saying ‘well done.’ But I was aware Shaun could do the same to me and the match wasn’t over, I tried to play tonight as if it was 0-0.

“I will have the same mindset against Judd and try to get into that zone again. He has been doing it to everyone, it feels like ten years he has been number one, bashing everyone up. If a few frames had gone my way in a couple of finals, this could have been an unbelievable season for me. It would be great to win a trophy.”

Murphy said: “It’s not the first time this season, when I have come off a match having lost and not felt I have done that much wrong. I have known Barry for 35 years and that’s one of the best sessions of snooker I have seen him play. He would have been ahead of anyone this afternoon. I made some mistakes, but he was unplayable.“

…

I must confess that I didn’t watch that match, instead I watched the other table.

In the afternoon we had an all Chinese affair as Xiao Guodong and Wu Yize faced each other. That session ended with the players all square at 4-4. Wu looked the strongest player at the start, taking a 3-0 lead. Then, for some reason he appeared to lose his way while Xiao improved. It went 3-3 and, eventually, they shared the last two frames. There were 5 breaks over 60 in that session, albeit no century. The highest break was 79 by Wu. To be honest, neither player showed their best snooker. There were many mistakes from both.

In the evening, Mark Williams and Ding played the first session of their match. Mark Williams was playing with contact lenses and it seems to help him¹, but he still was far from his former best. Actually neither player was at his best as both missed their fair share of seemingly very gettable balls, so much so that I really wonder to what extent Ding, despite being much younger than his opponent, may also suffer from eyes issues. Ding finished the first session 5-3 up.

In other moods …

I usually come up with some April fool on April 1, but, really, what is currently happening in the world, and in the USA in particular, is quite depressing and I don’t feel like it this year. I still remember when the current USA president won his first mandate, a still young Judd Trump complaining that the guy was giving “all Trumps” a bad reputation. We laughed back then. Not so much now… now I wish it was only reputations being damaged.

BTW the current reigning USA snooker champion, Renat Denkha, was born in Bagdad? And that he also won the 2025 US Masters just a week ago … Ha! Those immigrants! They even rob true Americans from their trophies…