Crucible latest: Sunday best for Ding and Murphy

Ding Junhui opened his Betfred.com World Championship in stunning fashion on Sunday, writes Richard Hercock.

The Sheffield-based potter felt right at home at the city’s Crucible Theatre as he raced into a 7-0 lead against Jamie Burnett.

There has only been one other whitewash in Crucible history, and that was back in 1992 when John Parrott blitzed Eddie Charlton 10-0 in their first-round meeting.

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Ding has long been tipped as a future Crucible champion, but has struggled to perform in the spotlight at Sheffield, but today he was flying with a 117 break littered among some high-scoring breaks to leave Burnett stunned.

Ding, watched by a high number of Chinese supporters, was playing snooker of the highest quality. In frame seven, he swept in a break of 128 which was mesmerising. A shot on the final yellow highlighted his break-building skills, running the ball round table to get back on position for the green.

Burnett finally managed to get his name on the scoresheet to prevent a whitewash, before Ding finished the session for 8-1 and needing two more frames on Monday morning to progress to the second round.

Another player who came close to a whitewash was Shaun Murphy, who led Marcus Campbell 9-0, needing just one more frame when their match resumed Sunday afternoon.

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Campbell at least snatched the first frame to prevent the whitewash before Murphy ran out a convincing 10-1 success.

Elsewhere, Jamie Cope beat Andrew Pagett 10-7, Ali Carter beat Dave Harold 10-3 and Mark Williams saw off Ryan Day 10-5.

Stephen Hendry leads Joe Perry 6-3 overnight, with the match concluding Monday.

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