Mark Williams didn't make a break over 50. Matthew Stevens made three, including a 120 in the ninth frame, but lost yesterday's all Welsh quarterfinal at the Citywest Hotel. Williams' facility to cobble enough points from repeated opportunities in six of the 10 frames proved decisive.
It proved a scrappy affair, in marked contrast to last year's World Championship final at the Crucible in which the good friends produced an 18-16 overture of gripping quality and drama. Almost 12 months on and both players are struggling to ascend to the same playing plateau: Williams has reached several semi-finals and finals but the quality of play that would allow him to collect silverware remains elusive.
Stevens, has also struggled a little with his form, a fact compounded by encountering inform players in tournaments. It is not that he's been bad, just not good enough. That was pretty much the case yesterday afternoon. On several occasions he threatened to make a decisive intervention in a frame only to be undermined by sloppy play and on other occasions he was simply unlucky.
When he did manage to inject a little fluency, he offered glimpses of his break building prowess, best illustrated in the ninth frame when trailing 5-3. Following a short safety exchange, Williams took on a pot and missed. Stevens stepped in to clear the 15 reds, yellow and green only to suffer a disastrous miss on a straightforward brown with the highest break - Peter Ebdon's 124 - at his mercy.
Stevens, when on 116, missed his intended green pocket, but the brown hugged the cushion on its journey to the bottom left pocket. He should have been galvanised by the fluke but instead missed the moderately awkward blue and so failed to eclipse Ebdon's mark: it was to prove one of those afternoon's.
The two Welshman noted for their free-flowing style produced an edgy 26 minute opening to the match, before Williams finally staggered home with a 20 clearance of the colours to pink. He appeared set to increase his advantage in the next but despite a break of 41, fouled four times in eight visits, Stevens eventually taking the frame, 7054.
Williams won the next, Stevens replying with a 52 break to leave the match delicately poised at the interval, 2-2. A 76 clearance to pink handed the initiative to Stevens but Williams won the next three frames: the sixth would have been particularly galling for Stevens as he potted a difficult blue but missed the pink which his opponent dispatched magnificently and the ensuing black to take the frame 60-58.
His 120 break offered temporary hope for Stevens but breaks of 18, 22, seven and 16 were enough to guarantee Williams victory, his first at the Irish Masters Snooker championship in four visits.
Last night Stephen Hendry achieved the most one-sided victory of the tournament so far as he crushed Scottish rival Alan McManus 601 to reach the last four.
The seven-time world champion powered to a 19th victory over Glaswegian McManus who failed to pot a ball in five of the seven frames.
At one stage Hendry, now set for his eight semi-final appearance of the season, outscored the 1993 and 1994 Masters finalist 358-0.
The 32-year-old Scot next meets Williams for a place in Sundays final.
Quarter-final: M Williams (Wal) bt M Stevens (Wal) 6-4 (Frames score (Williams 1st): 75-45 5470 73-9 37-70 5-104(104) 60-58 75-4 76-4 0120(120) 79-1).
