Shaun Murphy ‘absolutely sick’ after shock Welsh Open loss to world number 75

Shaun Murphy was near ‘absolutely sick’ aft his opening lucifer astatine the Welsh Open, losing 4-3 to satellite fig 75 Ma Hailong.

The caller Masters champion fell 2-0 down to the Chinese youngster but past played immoderate superb stuff, knocking successful breaks of 127, 100 and 82 to instrumentality the pb himself.

The 21-year-old made a 77 to instrumentality the lucifer to a decider and past got precise adjacent to triumph with different effort of 53.

Murphy needed snookers successful the decider but recovered 2 of them to support his hopes alive, lone for Ma to fluke the last reddish and unafraid a memorable victory.

The Magician was feeling the vexation of a constrictive defeat, having been beaten 5-4 by Yuan Sijun successful the past 16 of the German Masters successful his past outing.

‘Sick. Absolutely sick,’ Murphy told the BBC. ‘That’s the crippled isn’t it? That’s wherefore we emotion it and hatred it astatine the aforesaid time, successful adjacent measure.

‘The past 2 games I’ve lost, present and successful Berlin, person some been deciders. I’ve not had a accidental to triumph either of them. I thought erstwhile I got the 2 snookers that the Snooker Gods mightiness springiness maine an accidental but it wasn’t to beryllium and we rotation on.

‘I thought it was a truly bully lucifer and my hostile played really, truly well. Take the past framework retired of it, I thought helium was fantabulous and I tin lone springiness him praise. I had 2 centuries and an 80-odd truthful it was a precise precocious modular match. I person nary regrets, I tried my champion and I lost.’

There was different daze successful the aboriginal league connected Tuesday arsenic finalist astatine the German Masters and UK Championship this season, Barry Hawkins, was beaten 4-1 by Sanderson Lam.

The Hawk made 3 half-centuries to Lam’s one, but it was the Yorkshire cueiest who progresses to play either Wu Yize oregon Scott Donaldson.

‘I felt I played alright, it was a bully game,’ said Lam. ‘Really enjoyed it retired there, I deliberation that’s wherefore I ended up playing fractional decent. Delighted to get through.’

Ma goes done to look either Ryan Day oregon Ben Mertens successful the past 32.

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