Carter leads Maguire in semi-final

Ali Carter leads Stephen Maguire 5-3 after a scrappy opening session of their World Championship semi-final at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.

With the Crucible moving from a two- to one-table set-up for the semi-finals and final, both players struggled badly with the pace of the cloth in just under three hours of play.

Scotland’s Maguire - who last appeared at this stage in losing to John Higgins in 2007 - was not complaining as he made slightly fewer errors than Carter in winning the opening two frames of the contest.

Carter restored parity by picking up the next two frames with his opponent failing to pot a ball as a 46 in the third frame and 91 in the fourth frame enabled him to level at 2-2.

2008 World Championship finalist Carter - who ousted pre-tournament favourite Judd Trump in the second round - won his third straight frame despite Maguire getting a snooker he needed by rolling the white behind the black with just the pink and black left up.

Carter missed the pink before seeing a white fly into a top bag attempting a safety shot leaving Maguire with ball in hand needing pink and black for the frame.

The 2004 UK champion holed the pink, but did not get desired position on a black that he jawed as Carter slotted black to escape from the frame with a 3-2 lead.  Maguire had only made a top break of 21, but came up with a run of 82 to level at 3-3 only for Carter to win the final two frames of a largely forgettable session - aided by a 65 in the seventh frame - to carry a lead into the second day of the match which concludes on Saturday afternoon.