Bendigo Stadium - 9-15 July
WATCH LIVE - DRAW - LIVE SCORES - OFFICIAL SITE
Sussex's Mark Davis has a career spanning 21 years but has failed to live up to his potential and he always found himself in the lower sections of the rankings. Since winning the 2009 Six-Reds world championship and vastly benefitting from the increased amount of tournaments he has turned a new page and risen up the rankings.
Last month he reached his first ranking event semi-final at the Wuxi Classic and recently he won his second Six-Reds world title in Thailand. He continued this fine run of form today at the Australian Goldfields Open by beating Martin Gould to reach a second consecutive ranking event final.
Mark Davis
Davis got off to a great start making a 92 in the first frame. From then on it was mostly one-way traffic as the Pinner potter could only make a high break of 52 to win one of two frames as Davis's superior pot and long pot success saw him come comfortably through to win the match 5-2.
The 39-year-old said 'My form recently has been amazing. It has taken me 20 years to warm up but now I feel I am ready to finally start challenging for major titles.'
His oppenent in the semi-final is Dartford's Barry Hawkins who is also playing to reach his first ranking event final after seeing off Matthew Selt 5-3 with a 102 in the final frame.
Davis said of his opponent 'It will be great to play Barry as he is a good friend. We will both be desperate to win as a first final is at stake for us.'
Huge pot success rate for Mark Davis
In the earlier matches China Open champion Peter Ebdon came through his third consecutive decider in his match to beat Shaun Murphy 5-4.
Both players made a century each in the high standard encounter between the two former world champions and Murphy got the first chance in the decider but a noise from a crow outside the stadium distracted him giving Ebdon the chance to win the match.
Ebdon's opponent in the semi-final will be Hong Kong's Marco Fu who is through to his first major semi-final in over a year by beating Stephen Lee 5-1.
Peter Ebdon
Barry Hawkins 5-3 Matthew Selt
Mark Davis 5-2 Martin Gould
Shaun Murphy 4-5 Peter Ebdon
Stephen Lee 1-5 Marco Fu
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