Following his shock defeat of former world number two Stephen Maguire, young Anthony McGill produced another tonight to see off Graeme Dott and book a place in tomorrow’s final with John Higgins…
Match Summary – Chris Irving
Anthony McGill provided yet another shock in the Scottish Professional Championships, seeing off former world champion Graeme Dott in a tense affair in Clydebank. The young star dug deep to produce the goods and set up a mouth-watering final against World number one John Higgins in front of what will be packed house inside the Lucky Break.
Both players were far from their best and this one turned into a scrappy battle early on. Dott took the first frame with some good offensive snooker from the off, hitting a rapid break of 57 before eventually closing out the frame but he never pushed on from there and young Anthony soon pulled level. The Tartan Nugget just edged out his opponent in what was a scrappy frame riddled with mistakes but he was clinical when it mattered towards the end of the frame to stop Dott racing into a commanding lead.
In the third frame McGill showed great character to come from behind and take the lead, capitalising on a mistake by Dott to close out the frame after it had looked like his break of 47 wasn’t going to be enough.
However, Dott showed that quality that has served him so well in the past to go in at the break level, with a long red to start off an 81 break to make it 2-2.
Dott came flying out of the traps after the mid-session interval, hitting a quick break of 51 to restore his lead but this match swung from end to end constantly and McGill pulled level immediately thanks to some quality shooting in amongst the balls, bagging a break of 88 as Dott never left his seat.
McGill then showed great character to pounce on a Dott error and take the lead at a crucial time in the match.
When McGill made a 64 break in the eighth frame, it looked all over until he inexplicably missed a black but he dug deep once again and found that bit extra to make the most of mistake by Dott, sinking a long red to seal the win.
Graeme was a frustrated figure after the match.
“I’m disappointed with the way I played. I’m disappointed with the state of my game going into the worlds. It’s not where I want it to be and there were more mistakes tonight than in the last game. I’m running out of time and my game isn’t near where I want it to be so it’s a bit worrying. I’m nowhere near my best and its frustrating when you miss the amount of balls I missed tonight. Some of my play was good but it was too few and far between and you can’t do it at this level let alone in the World Championship.
He acknowledged the quality of his opponent, saying
“He’s going to be special. He never played well tonight and he got the result so he’s going to be up there but he will need to play a lot better than he did tonight to beat John and he will have to be at his absolute best to win.”
McGill was thrilled to bits afterwards.
“Neither of us played at our best tonight but I made a nice 60 break at the end there to win it. You’re never going to get it easy against Graeme and to be able to grind out a match against one of the top players in the world is just fantastic. Towards the end I made a couple of nice breaks and Graeme wasn’t getting a run of the balls but I’m just thankful I managed to get the right breaks at the right time.”
His face lit up when asked about tomorrow’s night big final.
“I can’t wait to play him here in my own club. John is the best player in the world and it is absolutely great. The crowd will be great but hopefully they will give me the support I need, I’m the underdog and the local boy so hopefully they will be right behind me.”