Robertson closes in on Davis

Robertson: Close to victory

I just lost my concentration a little bit at the end there, I could have wrapped it up and had tomorrow off.

Neil Robertson
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Neil Robertson edged closer to dumping veteran Steve Davis out of the Betfred.com World Championship on Tuesday evening.

Englishman Davis was trailing 12-4 in their quarter-final match at the end of the night, with Robertson of Australia needing one more frame to seal his victory.

The last two frames of the evening went to 52-year-old Davis as he clung on to postpone what is surely an inevitable defeat.

Supportive

Davis gave the supportive Crucible crowd something to cheer when he made a classic century, an immaculate 128, but it did not reflect his form in the rest of the match.

Robertson had surged 7-1 ahead in the morning session and he built on that for his decisive overnight lead.

The Australian raced to 10-2 by the evening interval, and looked likely to earn himself an unexpected day off as he made it 12-2 with a superb 92 break.

Davis took the next frame on the black with a brave 32 clearance, then edged over the line in the next, finally sinking the pink after a safety battle.

The session will now continue on Wednesday afternoon, and Robertson was disappointed not to wrap the match up sooner.

"At the start of the day I would have been very happy with a 12-4 lead to take into tomorrow," said Robertson.

"Steve struggled a bit, and the table was pretty bad in the morning session.

"I just lost my concentration a little bit at the end there, I could have wrapped it up and had tomorrow off.

"But it is going to be very difficult for him to come back from there. I'll have to concentrate hard to finish the job.

"If I was playing anyone else I would have done it, but I think Steve was very determined not to lose with a session to spare."

Battle

In other action, Scotland's Graeme Dott battled back to move onto level terms with Mark Allen of Northern Ireland at 8-8.

Allen had led 4-0 and 5-3 following a break of 100 in the eighth frame, but 2006 champion Dott rallied with runs of 74, 116, 85 and 67 in the second session, which reaches its conclusion on Wednesday morning.