Shaun Murphy called it one of the best wins of his career as he came from behind to beat John Higgins 6-5 in the second round of the 2025 UK Championship on Thursday.
The Magician, a winner of the Triple Crown tournament 17 years ago, was 4-1 and 5-3 down but staged a determined fight back to deny the Scot in a deciding frame.
Murphy began the calendar year with success at the Masters and remains on course to end 2025 with another major piece of silverware in his hands.
“It’s one of the best wins of my career,” this season’s British Open champion Murphy told the World Snooker Tour.
“I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that. I’ve been lucky to have a great career and many great victories.”
“But that match there…I always say, when you play one of the legends, you’ve got to throw everything at them. Tonight had a bit of everything.
“It was a really good match. I thought we both played well. We both had a bit of bad luck and good luck just at the right times.
“John said afterwards that he enjoyed the game. I really enjoyed the game, and I’m sure our next match wherever it is will be just as entertaining.
“I was literally sitting behind certain shots and thinking, ‘what would John do?’ If he was stood here, what would he play?
“We talk about him being the best tactical player of all time or a Mark Selby, and you think what would they play here?
“My way has been okay, but it has lost me some games as well. It’s probably about time that I tried something else.
“I’ve been practicing so hard and putting so much work into it, I thought that rather than thinking of the clever shot on the way home, I’ll try and think of it now.
“We’ve had some amazing matches over the years, and he’s caused me a lot of pain if I’m being honest. He has beaten me in some massive matches.
“I don’t think we’ve played each other enough for it to be a rivalry. There’s certainly no rivalry there, and it’s an honour to share the stage with John Higgins.
“Long may the Class of ’92 continue. It’s great being out there with him going toe to toe. I won today, but he has beaten me so many times.”
Next up for Murphy will be qualifier Zhang Anda, who reached the quarter-finals with an impressive 6-2 defeat of Zhao Xintong during which he compiled a brace of century breaks.
Barry Hawkins and Ding Junhui were the others to advance in the competition on Thursday, completing the quarter-final lineup in York.
Ding edged Scott Donaldson by the odd frame to set up a meeting with Judd Trump, the favourite for glory in the outright market with fans able to download melbet for a range of other snooker odds on the tournament.
Hawkins, meanwhile, who was the runner-up to Judd Trump 12 months ago, thrashed Elliot Slessor with a whitewash display.
“I feel like I played well, and I feel like I hit the ball a lot better tonight,” said Hawkins, who’ll take on Mark Selby in the quarter-finals.
“But there were a couple of moments where Elliot could have punished me a bit more. I’m always ultra-critical of myself obviously.”
“But it was a big improvement from the first game, definitely. I was just pleased how I felt out there, I felt a bit more comfortable tonight.
“I’ve a really tough game tomorrow. I’ll be glad to have a nice early night tonight and get a good kip ready for tomorrow.
“It’ll be a great occasion to play [Selby] out there. Even though we’ll be trying our absolute best, we’ll probably try to enjoy every minute of it as well.”
All four quarter-final fixtures are on Friday’s order of play at the Barbican Centre.
Friday’s order of play
1pm UTC/GMT
Judd Trump vs Ding Junhui
Pang Junxu vs Neil Robertson
7pm UTC/GMT
Barry Hawkins vs Mark Selby
Shaun Murphy vs Zhang Anda
Featured image credit: WST
A very entertaining match, I was pulling for Murphy because I usually like to see a good comeback, and I find Murphy quite likable — not long ago I would’ve picked Higgins as the player most likely to win a crucial or must-win frame, but he’s fallen a bit from that level — he had his chances to win the match, but errors did him in — on the telecast they showed an ‘Unforced Errors’ stat, something I don’t recall seeing much of before — Higgins definitely made a few of those (as did Murphy).
Anyone know why Murphy is not part of the BBC commentary team this year?