After a five-year wait, Shaun Murphy finally experienced that winning feeling at the Champion of Champions.
The Ricoh Arena has not been a happy hunting ground for the world number five over the past four seasons, losing out in his opening match on every occasion with defeats to Mark Selby, Marco Fu, Yan Bingtao and John Higgins.
He put that right this time round securing wins against Mark King and Michael White to book his place in the semi-finals.
It wasn’t all plain sailing for the Magician though. He fell behind twice against King before winning the last three frames to secure a 4-2 victory.
Against White, he started much brighter with three centuries in the opening four frames to race into a 3-1 lead at the mid-session interval. After the break, the contest turned into a scrappier affair, but he managed scramble his way to the line 6-4.
Although he was unable to see off White as easily as he looked like he might earlier in the match, Murphy will be pleased with his day’s work not least because he prides himself on his consistency and will have been very aware of his poor record in this event to date.
After all, this tournament is a showpiece for all the winners of the year gone by. While his record as one of the tournament’s ever-presents over the past five editions clearly demonstrates his longevity at the very top of the sport, his failure to make his mark here will have been something he would have been desperate to put right.
A run to the latter stages of this event could also give Murphy a timely boost of confidence before we progress into the business end of the season.
Since reaching back-to-back finals at the China Championship and Paul Hunter Classic earlier in the campaign, he has failed to go past the last 16 in the five events since including two defeats at the last 128 stage.
As we saw in abundance in his match against White at the Ricoh, Murphy is a classic confidence player. When he gets on a roll he almost looks unstoppable and a tilt at this prestigious title could be just the tonic to give him a lift.
Murphy will be back in action in the semi-finals on Saturday evening when he will face the winner of the group including Selby, Judd Trump, Liang Wenbo and Luca Brecel.
