World Snooker Championship Betting / Paul Krishnamurty / 30 April 2009 / Leave a comment

The 2005 World Champion is in stellar form and should sink the Aussie who's in uncharted waters.

The cliche we usually hear during this 17 day marathon is that it helps to have a tough first round match, in order to sharpen up your game before improving as the tournament goes on. So far, Shaun Murphy is proving that rule.

The Englishman was well below his best in a first round struggle against Andrew Higginson, scraping through 10-8, but hasn't looked back since. A highly professional drubbing of Marco Fu was followed by an outstanding performance yesterday, when he came from behind to beat Stephen Hendry. The 2005 champion was cueing quite magnificently in that last match, hitting nine breaks over 50 in the last two sessions, including three tons.

I make him a strong favourite for tonight's second semi-final against Neil Robertson, more so than the [1.75] odds currently on offer. On the basis of all the form so far, Robertson is the weakest of the four semi-finalists. Even though the Aussie has taken two notable scalps with some ease to reach his first Crucible semi, his progress was significantly helped by the poor form of his victims, Ali Carter and Stephen Maguire.

It may also offer a slight psychological advantage to Murphy that he comfortably won the pair's most recent encounter, 5-1 at last month's China Open.