{"id":41777,"date":"2026-04-29T04:49:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T04:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/world-championship-2026-defending-champion-zhao-xintong-fights-back-against-shaun-murphy\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T04:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T04:49:16","slug":"world-championship-2026-defending-champion-zhao-xintong-fights-back-against-shaun-murphy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/world-championship-2026-defending-champion-zhao-xintong-fights-back-against-shaun-murphy\/","title":{"rendered":"World Championship 2026: Defending champion Zhao Xintong fights back against Shaun Murphy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Neil Robertson established a narrow 5-3 lead over John Higgins in a fiercely contested opening to their quarter-final.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Higgins compiled breaks of 61 and 56 to take the first frame and the fourth to draw level at 2-2.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, the emotional and physical toll of defeating Ronnie O&#8217;Sullivan 13-12 in an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/snooker\/articles\/c3r3r5q3pl3o\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">all-time Crucible classic<\/a> on Monday appeared to weigh on the 50-year-old Scot at times. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The four-time champion made six unforced errors before reaching the mid-session interval and was far from his best in a scrappy affair.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Australia&#8217;s Robertson, who won the world title in 2010, also failed to hit the heights despite enjoying runs of 77 and 70 and, at one point, he even had to have his chair repaired, adding to the protracted nature of their contest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While he took the final two frames of the session, his pragmatic approach and an unfortunate run of the balls contributed to a drawn-out eighth frame that lasted almost 52 minutes and delayed the start of the evening session. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Robertson and Higgins get back under way on Wednesday at 10:00 BST.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In contrast, Hossein Vafaei and Wu Yize are level at 4-4 after an entertaining start to their best-of-25 encounter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With both players seemingly focused on attacking snooker, Iran&#8217;s Vafaei knocked in a break of 66 to lead 2-1 before Wu underlined his status as one of the game&#8217;s burgeoning talents with runs of 90, 56 and 56 to pull 4-2 ahead. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Vafaei, who had to win two qualifiers before advancing past Si Jiahui and then world number one Judd Trump in a final-frame thriller, responded with a break of 71. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And he drew level when Wu failed to knock in a presentable long black to the top left corner, clearing the table up to, and including, the pink. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They return for the second session of their best-of-25 encounter on Wednesday at 14:30 BST. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/snooker\/articles\/c87qge4nexqo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Neil Robertson established a narrow 5-3 lead over John Higgins in a fiercely contested opening to their quarter-final. Higgins compiled breaks of 61 and 56 to take the first frame and the fourth to draw level at 2-2. However, the emotional and physical toll of defeating Ronnie O&#8217;Sullivan 13-12 in an all-time Crucible classic on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41777"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41779,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41777\/revisions\/41779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}