David Gilbert reaches Championship League snooker final group stage, but Murphy title defence ended by Long shot

ByEurosport

Published 28/06/2024 at 22:45 GMT

The first ranking event of the season is heading for its conclusion with David Gilbert and Long Zehuang booking their respective spots in the last eight group stage of the Championship League in Leicester. Gilbert dropped only two frames in sealing his progress as Group B winner while Long ended Shaun Murphy's title defence by topping Group C despite losing to Murphy on Friday.

'Showing off his flexibility' - Gilbert does stretches during morning session

David Gilbert enjoyed three straight wins to reach the final group stage of the Championship League with a resounding victory in topping Group B in Leicester.

The Crucible semi-finalist scraped into the last 32 with a break of 136 in his final frame of the day on Thursday, but did not need such heroics when he resumed play at the Mattioli Arena on Friday.

The former Championship League winner enjoyed wins over Ashley Carty (3-1), He Guoqiang (3-1) and Stuart Bingham (3-0) to book a return trip to the venue next week.

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Gilbert finished five points clear of 2015 world champion Bingham with his top break of 132 coming in victory over He as he reached the last eight of the first ranking event of the campaign in some style.

He was joined in the next phase by Group C winner Long Zehuang, who recovered from an opening 3-1 loss to defending champion Shaun Murphy to qualify with impressive 3-0 wins over Hossein Vafaei and Jamie Jones.

Murphy needed to overcome Vafaei in his final match to progress, but lost 3-0 as Long topped the group on frame difference.

Jack Lisowski and Ali Carter are in action in Group E on Saturday alongside Wu Yize, with Neil Robertson withdrawing from the event.

Stage one consisted of 32 groups of four players. The eight group winners contest a further two groups with the winners meeting in the final.

There is £33,000 on the table for the winner plus a spot in the Champion of Champions later in the year which is worth another £12,500 for qualifying.