Today was quite the eventful day in Nanjing … as reported by WST:

International Championship Day Four

China’s Wu Yize staged a stunning fightback to overhaul world number one Judd Trump and win 6-4 at the International Championship in Nanjing.

Having trailed 4-0, it had appeared 22-year-old Wu was heading home. However, a sensational blitz of six frames in a row saw him surge to victory. Wu hammered home runs of 62, 109, 88, 92, 86 and 80 in consecutive frames to turn the match on its head.

It’s a second straight win over Trump for Wu, who also defeated him during a run to the 2024 English Open final. Wu is still searching for a maiden title, having lost that English Open final to Neil Robertson. He went on to fall short against compatriot Lei Peifan in the Scottish Open final later that year.

Next up in Wu’s hunt for maiden ranking title glory is a meeting with Barry Hawkins, who beat Jack Lisowski 6-4.

Wu is the only player left in the hunt to dislodge Chris Wakelin from the top 16 in the Johnstone’s Paint World Rankings and avoid qualifying for the UK Championship, but he must win the event.

“I felt very proud of myself. After going 4-0 down I fought shot by shot. The crowd really cheered me up. With all the fans cheering at the end it felt like a moment of true happiness,” said an elated Wu.

“I attacked really well today. I barely made any mistakes and once I was given opportunities I just took them. He certainly put me under a lot of pressure.”

Mark Selby thrashed Anthony McGill 6-1 to set up a mouth-watering quarter-final with World Champion Zhao Xintong.

The Jester from Leicester has historically enjoyed his travels to China, having won seven of his 24 ranking crowns in the country. However, victory this week would end a seven year Chinese title drought for the Englishman.

Selby heads into his quarter-final with Zhao aiming to maintain his 100% record against the Crucible King, having won all five of their previous meetings.

Selby said: “I’m looking forward to playing Zhao. He’s a really nice lad. It is amazing for China to have a World Champion. He played amazing in April to win it. Hopefully he doesn’t play that sort of stuff against me tomorrow

“I’ll try to keep playing the right shots at the right time. If he keeps on potting them and beats me then sometimes you just have to hold your hands up. I’ll go out there and play the game in front of me and see what happens.”

Zhao also breezed through with ease, thrashing Chinese compatriot Si Jiahui 6-1 with five breaks over 50.

Shaun Murphy continued his excellent form with a 6-2 defeat of Chinese legend Ding Junhui to make the quarters. 

The Magician is in celebratory mood this week having recently won the British Open. He then got engaged to his now fiancee Jo the day before getting on the flight to Nanjing. 

Century breaks of 104 and 114 helped Murphy to victory today. He now faces John Higgins, who came from 5-4 down to beat Scottish compatriot Scott Donaldson 6-5. 

Murphy said: “The crowd make themselves heard a lot more here than they do back in the UK. Although Ding has great support all over the world. I have to say the crowd were fantastic. They were very respectful and cheered my good shots as well as Ding’s good shots. I enjoyed every minute of it and I think we put on a good show for them.” 

Zak Surety followed up from yesterday’s 147 break with a superb 6-3 defeat of 2010 World Champion Neil Robertson. That sets up a quarter-final with Stephen Maguire, who defeated Jiang Jun 6-4.

The Essex cueman is now through to a ranking quarter-final for the second time in his career. He was beaten 6-5 in the semis of the World Open by Higgins last year, a match he had led 5-3. Surety admits he has learned from that experience. 

Surety said: “I was trying not to think of that John Higgins semi-final, but I did learn from it. There were a few shots when I was 5-3 up against John that I didn’t go for. I had a similar red today and I did go for it. They are so good these guys, they just punish you. I think he started to sense I was flapping a bit. They are killers these guys, they eat you alive.“

Not much to add really. Surety is a strange player, quite unpredictable. I remember watching him at a PTC, I don’t remember which one, but he really impressed me in that event and I expected him to get good results from there on but then he did nothing of note afterwards, he “disappeared” for months, even years….