SHAUN Murphy held a slender 5-3 lead over Marco Fu at the halfway point in the Maplin UK Championship final yesterday in Telford.
The Englishman took the last frame of the first session to put him on course for the second ranking event title of his career.
World No 3 Murphy had not won a tournament match this season before arriving in Shropshire, but the 2005 world champio
n knocked out Martin Gould, Mark Allen, Stephen Lee and Stephen Maguire to secure his place in the final.
Hong Kong's Fu, ranked 14th in the world, eliminated Barry Hawkins, Matthew Stevens, Ronnie O'Sullivan's conqueror Joe Perry and Ali Carter.
Fu rattled in the only century of the afternoon session but was left two frames in arrears in the best-of-19 match after Murphy proved marginally the more consistent player.
The first two frames were shared and slow-going, with neither man producing their best snooker, but that was soon to change. Murphy rattled in a 99 break to take frame three, only being denied a century when he lost position and missed a tricky red. Fu hit back with the first century of the final, 102, to square the match at the mid-session interval.
It was his eighth century of the week but Murphy took the first frame after the interval with a break of 38 and made it 4-2 with a run of 73 in the next. Fu hit back with breaks of 69 and 74 in the seventh frame to reduce his arrears to a single frame.
Given the importance of the eighth frame, with Fu looking to level up before the evening session, it proved a tight one and a fluked red helped Murphy.
Fu was left requiring snookers but Murphy kept successfully escaping and Fu eventually conceded after failing to escape from a snooker himself, leaving him needing seven of a possible 11 frames in the evening session.
Meanwhile, Mark Selby believes snooker's authorities will find no evidence of wrong-doing after launching an investigation into the UK Championship match between Scots duo Jamie Burnett and Stephen Maguire. The first-round match was won 9-3 by Maguire, and bookmakers reported a flurry of bets on that scoreline, information which they relayed to tournament officials.
Burnett missed a tricky black in the 12th frame which would have made it 8-4 and removed any concerns about the result.
World snooker chiefs have confirmed they will conduct a formal investigation, but Selby doubts any player would risk their career by rigging a match.
The reigning Masters and Welsh Open champion said in his Yahoo and Eurosport column: "I find it hard to believe that there is anything in this reported betting scandal involving Jamie Burnett and Stephen Maguire.
"I just don't think it is in a snooker player's nature. You look at somebody like Stephen Maguire and there is just no reason for him to be involved in anything like that. There is far too much to lose. You can't help it if other people put bets on the match."
