Wu Yize ‘frightening’ against Shaun Murphy in World Snooker Championship final

Wu Yize played some spectacular snooker on Sunday night and leads Shaun Murphy 10-7 after two sessions of the World Snooker Championship final.

The pair were level at 4-4 after the opening session, with both showing signs of nerves, but both were more settled in the evening.

The 22-year-old in his first final made a blistering start at night, knocking in breaks of 82 and 103 to stride into a lead.

Murphy wasn’t doing much wrong and took the next with a 72, but Wu claimed the next two, including an 89 to look in good nick at 8-5 ahead.

It was pretty relentless attacking snooker from both, with Murphy feeling forced into the odd safety, while Wu took on near enough everything.

The Magician made 70 to take the 14th, before Wu responded with a 66 as the fans in Sheffield continued to be treated to brilliant scoring.

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While Murphy was not poor by any stretch, it felt like he was hanging on to Wu, but it looked like he might escape with just a one-frame deficit when he took the 16th and got in the balls in the 17th.

He was a touch unlucky to land awkward and played, what looked like, a perfectly good safety, but Wu sank an immense long red and knocked in 91 to finish the day 10-7 up.

Seven-time champion Stephen Hendry was loving the performance of the thrilling Chinese star from the BBC studio.

‘What a player. He’s just brilliant. He plays the game properly and goes for the shots,’ said the Scot.

‘He’s obviously at a stage of his career when he’s not had many scars and he’s not thinking about the consequences of missing. He’s just having fun.

‘The important thing is when he’s playing shots, he’s fully committing to them. There are no thoughts of bailing out at any stage.’

He added: ‘He’s having fun out there and that’s the worst kind of opponent you can have, someone who looks as though they’re enjoying themself.’

Six-time champion Steve Davis said Wu is ‘scaring the life out of everyone he plays’ after wins over Lei Peifan, Mark Selby, Hossein Vafaei and Mark Allen.

Hendry said Wu is at the forefront of ‘frightening’ snooker talent from China now at, or rising to, the top of the game.

‘The talent coming through from China is quite frightening,’ he said. ‘[Zhao] Xintong last year, Wu Yize now, a guy called Chang Bingyu who beat Shaun this year with 100 per cent pot success. The young talent is frightening.’

There is a long way to go in the race to 18 frames, which comes to an end on Monday, but Murphy has work to do to keep up with the Chinese phenom.

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