IT IS amazing how quickly things can change in sport, as Alan McManus found out to his cost at the Betfred World Snooker Championship on Thursday afternoon.
From the elation of securing the unlikeliest of quarter-final victories over John Higgins on Wednesday evening, to being left reeling by a Ding Junhui scoring blitz in their semi-final less than 24 hours later – trailing 6-2 following the first session.
McManus’s 13-11 victory over fellow Scot Higgins saw the 45-year-old become the oldest semi-finalist at Sheffield’s iconic Crucible Theatre since Ray Reardon in 1985.
Following that victory, he jokingly chided the assembled media for labelling him a veteran yet it was Ding – a man 16 years his junior – who looked far more sprightly around the baize on Thursday.
Whether the energy expended and elation felt at reaching the World Championship last-four for the first time since 1993 drained him, only McManus will know, but what is indisputable is that Ding flew out of the blocks to leave the Glaswegian stunned.
The Chinese superstar opened with break of 100 and didn’t let up – following that with knocks of 84, 131 and 62 to lead 4-0 at the mid-session interval in under an hour.
That soon became 5-0 with yet another century and despite the clash being a best-of-33, McManus looked in serious danger of having any chance of victory scuppered within one session.
Yet the world No.29 has always been known for his resiliency and grit – they were big factors in helping him to two World Championship semi-finals and a Masters title in the early 1990s – and he fought back.
It wasn’t always pretty, and he failed to record even a half-century break, but he did enough to get two frames on the board and narrow the gap to 5-2.
However, the Chinese world No.17 had one final shot to fire, making a fourth century break of the afternoon, a majestic 128, to ensure a 6-2 lead.
Making Ding’s performance even more remarkable is the fact that the record for most centuries in a Crucible semi-final is five and McManus will have to find a way to slow the 29-year-old down when they resume at 10am on Friday.
But with relatively low expectations on him, the Scot admitted heading into the clash that his main focus would simply be drinking in every moment of the special occasion at the Crucible.
“At one stage during my match against John Higgins the partition in the middle went up – sometimes you take a moment out there and at that point I did,” said McManus.
“I went and stood against the other table and it was like a church out there. John was at the table and the place was jam-packed and I thought ‘this is where it’s at’.
“I felt dead happy - these days might never come again and no-one knows when that will happen.
“I’m quite a big historian of the game and I enjoy these bricks and this building. It’s a very, very special place for an awful lot of players who have done an awful lot better here than I have.
“To be going out and playing one table is the thrill of the second half of my career.”
McManus was a 300-1 outsider to lift the World Championship trophy before the tournament began and it is fair to say very few expected him to reach the last-four.
It is his first ranking event semi-final in a decade and both he and Ding had to come through three best-of-19 qualifying matches at Pond’s Forge just to reach the Crucible.
It is the first time two qualifiers have met in the last-four at the Worlds since 1978 and even McManus concedes he never expected anything like this to happen.
McManus added: “If someone had said to me at Pond’s Forge a few weeks ago that I would be playing Ding in the semis when he was on the end table and I was over the back, you would just think it’s not going to happen.
“But sport can do strange things sometimes.”
Watch the World Championship LIVE on Eurosport, with Colin Murray and analysis from Jimmy White and Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here