UK Championship: Neil Robertson to face Liang Wenbo in final
- Published
Betway UK Championship |
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Venue: York Barbican Dates: 24 November - 6 December |
BBC coverage: Watch on BBC Two, Red Button, BBC Sport website, Connected TVs, tablets, mobiles and app from 28 November. Full details. |
Australia's Neil Robertson whitewashed world number one Mark Selby to set up a UK Championship final against Liang Wenbo at York's Barbican on Sunday.
Robertson stormed into a 4-0 interval lead and continued to pounce on errors to claim a 6-0 victory.
The world number three told BBC Sport: "I nicked a few frames and played well at the business end of frames."
World number 29 Liang, who has never won a ranking event, beat David Grace 6-4 in the other semi-final.
In reaching the final, the Chinese has jumped into the top 16 in the world which qualifies him for a place at next month's Masters.
Robertson the frame stealer
Selby made 50-plus breaks in the first two frames, but lost them both as Robertson showed amazing ability to fight his way out of trouble.
It was best illustrated in a gripping second frame where the Australian trailed by 55 points but made a 68 clearance to take it on the black.
Robertson, the 2013 UK champion, also stole the next frame with a break of 53 and then won a scrappy fourth.
He added: "It was 4-0, but on reflection it could easily have been 2-2."
Selby looked odds-on to break his duck in the fifth frame, but Robertson won a safety bout and cleared from the green.
Looking increasingly desperate, Selby went for more long pots in the sixth frame and after missing a crucial one on the colours, Robertson kept his cool to win on the black.
Edgy Liang finds his nerve
Despite winning the opening frame, Romford-based Liang looked a different player from the one who racked up three successive centuries against Hong Kong's Marco Fu in the quarter-finals.
He appeared edgy being favourite, occasionally slapping his own face as his frustrations boiled over.
Grace, who cleans snooker tables to supplement his earnings, won three frames in a row with a highest break of just 52 to lead 3-1 at the interval as the contest took a while to warm up a capacity crowd in York.
Liang, whose only other ranking final was the Shanghai Masters in 2009, knocked in a match-best 110 break in the first frame after the interval to reduce the arrears, but Grace restored his two-frame advantage at 4-2.
The Chinese won two further scrappy frames to level the match in the eighth before a crucial 50 break gave him the lead for the first time since the opening frame.
He let a comfortable lead slip in the 11th, but after potting an excellent green and following it with a tough brown to the middle pocket, Grace faltered on the pink and Liang took advantage.
On reaching his first UK ranking final, Liang said: "I'm under no pressure. I will enjoy the game."
The final, which will be live on BBC Two and the BBC Sport website, is the best of 19 frames and begins at 13:00 GMT.
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