Barry Hawkins underlined his status as the king of consistency at the Crucible as he beat Ding Junhui to reach a fifth World Championship semi-final in six years.
His 13-5 victory over the Chinese star and favourite for the title coming into this round is right up there among the best single performances of the tournament so far – as the Hawk proved he might be saving his best for when it really matters.
After not really hitting peak form to beat Stuart Carrington and Lyu Haotin in early rounds, this was a real step up in performance to prove he’s going through the gears nicely as we reach the business end of the tournament.
Hawkins – playing in this his sixth successive quarter-final in Sheffield – has become the master of this round and continues to show what a vastly underrated player he really is.
To put his outstanding record here into context, Hawkins has now won 18 matches at the Crucible over his past six visits. This is more than world number one Mark Selby who has won the event three times during this period.
Of course with a record as good as this, the question now turns to whether Hawkins can convert this golden period in his career into silverware and capture snooker’s most prestigious prize. Based on this performance, he has absolutely every chance. There were large chunks in this match where it felt though he just didn’t miss.
He looks so calm, controlled and decisive in the balls as you would expect of a player who is making an annual ritual of progressing through to the latter stages of the sport’s blue riband event.
With all the experience of playing on the one-table setup in recent seasons, Hawkins has nothing to fear ahead of him and will quietly believe he’s got what it takes this time to finish the job.
