Single Game 66-67 Suffers a 1-Point Extreme Comeback! World Champion 2-6 Out, First 4 Strong in the Masters Decided
At midnight on January 16th, Beijing time, the first semi-finalist of the 2025 Snooker Masters was determined. In the first match of the quarter-finals, world champion Neil Robertson was eliminated with a total score of 2-6, losing to Murphy, another member of the "Five Tigers of the 80s." Among them, in the fifth game, Neil Robertson suffered a 1-point extreme comeback from Murphy with a score of 66-67!
Both Neil Robertson and Murphy are members of the "Five Tigers of the 80s" and have won the Masters championship. In this year's snooker masters, due to the withdrawal of defending champion O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson was lucky enough to be given a place in the competition. In the previous round of 16 to 8, Neil Robertson staged a great comeback by winning five consecutive games after trailing 1-5 in the total score, eventually defeating Higgins, one of the "Three Giants of '75," with a total score of 6-5.
Murphy qualified directly for this year's snooker masters with his world No. 7 ranking. In the first round, Murphy scored a century break and three 50+, eliminating Gary Wilson with a total score of 6-3. Throughout their careers, Murphy and Neil Robertson have faced each other many times, including the 2015 Masters final, when Murphy defeated Neil Robertson 10-2 to win his first Masters championship trophy.
In this match, Murphy took the lead, blasting a 90-point winner to take the first game 90-35. Then, Neil Robertson immediately responded with a single shot of 79 points, winning back a game.
In the third game, Murphy took it 68-24 with multiple shots. In the fourth game, Murphy seized the opportunity to blast another 67 points. After the first four games of the first half, Murphy led with a total score of 3-1.
After a brief halftime break, the fifth game was fiercely contested. Neil Robertson took the lead with a single shot of 66 points to lead 66-1, but he failed to pot the red ball for an over-score, giving Murphy the chance to reverse the game. In the subsequent defense, Murphy gave Neil Robertson a long-range opportunity, and after a long period of contemplation, Neil Robertson decided to risk an attack. Unexpectedly, he accidentally missed the shot, which directly gave Murphy the opportunity to pot the red ball at the pocket. Murphy easily potted the red ball at the bottom pocket and completed the clearance, returning a 66-point shot to make an extreme comeback with a 1-point advantage of 67-66!
In the sixth game, Neil Robertson rallied, blasting a century break of 108 points to win, bringing the total score to 2-4. In the seventh game, Murphy made a single shot of 82 points, leading 5-2 to get the match point. In the eighth game, Neil Robertson failed to pot a long-range shot, and Murphy seized the opportunity to start playing around the black ball. After scoring more than the required points, he attempted to hit a perfect 147, but unfortunately, the score was unfortunately stuck at 120 points when connecting the black ball to the yellow ball! However, with a single shot of 120 points in the eighth game, Murphy still cleanly ended the game, eliminating Neil Robertson with a total score of 6-2 and becoming the first player to advance to the semi-finals of this year's snooker masters.