‘One table, all eyes on you’: Tension heightens at the Crucible for world semi-finals

Mark Allen is aiming to become the first world champion from the island of Ireland since Ken Doherty in 1997

Fri May 01 2026 - 19:56 • 4 MIN READ

Walking down Sheffield’s Surrey Street, you can hear the snooker before you see it. The ambient commentary and sound of ball striking leather rolls past the shops on the way down to the Crucible Theatre. In the beautiful Winter Garden across the road, youngsters try their luck on the open snooker tables. Fans bask in the sun loungers outside the theatre watching the action on a big screen. The relaxed atmosphere outside contrasts with the tension inside.

On Thursday, John Higgins and Shaun Murphy got the first semi-final of the 2026 World Championship under way. At this stage the partition down the middle of the 980-seat venue comes up, the second table is removed and the Crucible is transformed into a pressure cooker worthy of the name.

Murphy looked focused as the players walked into a raucous reception. The 2005 champion started quickly, picking up the first frame with a 68 break. However, the pregnant silence of the Crucible began to grip the players and errors crept in.

Murphy was the dominant player but several surprising misses derailed his form and let Higgins into the match. In his 100^th Crucible match, the Scot somehow emerged from the session with four frames despite not making a break over 50.

Both players looked sharper on Friday morning, with Higgins making the most of his escape the previous day to take a two-frame lead but Murphy struck back to again level the match.

Each of the four potential winners has a compelling story. Murphy has played some of the best snooker of his career this week, blasting past defending champion Zhao Xintong in the quarters and he looks well-equipped to clinch a first world title in 21 years.

Higgins, meanwhile, came from 9-4 behind to knock out Ronnie O’Sullivan in a classic and Neil Robertson was blown away by his “unbelievable” safety in the quarter-finals. This would be Higgins’s fifth title and would make him the tournament’s oldest champion at 51.

The other semi-final pits Belfast’s Mark Allen against Wu Yize. The young Chinese star broke into the world’s top 10 this season and got the better of Mark Selby to get this far.

Allen came from behind to edge out Barry Hawkins in the last eight. Speaking after the match, Allen said he felt “relief more than anything” at getting through but after a patchy season he believes he’s in with “a real chance”. “I’ve won everything else, so why can’t I win this?”

This is the 40-year-old’s third semi-final in Sheffield. He made the final four back in 2007 but Higgins saw him off on his way to the title, and in 2023, Selby outlasted him in a marathon encounter. This time around he’s the more experienced player, something he believes could play a role “but it might not, because people get inspired. One-table set-up, all eyes on you.”

In the first session on Thursday evening, Yize certainly seemed inspired, storming into an early lead. The 22-year-old played the more fluent snooker racking up a 6-2 advantage by the end of opening bout, but Allen bounced back to level the match at 7-7 in Friday’s session, which included the longest frame in Crucible history of more than one hour and 40 minutes.

Allen has shown plenty resilience to get to this stage without playing “anywhere near my best”. After the Hawkins match, he said: “I think that’s just being from Northern Ireland, we’re all the same. We have a never-say-die attitude ... I’ve always been of that mindset, can you win the next frame, no matter what the scoreline is? I know that’s very cliche, but sometimes it is that simple.”

Allen’s taken some flak in recent years, with Stephen Hendry among the critics of his slower pace of play and at times more conservative shot choice, even as he rose to world number one in 2024. Allen said he’d love Hendry to speak better of him but “opinions don’t really affect me”.

In the run-up to this event, he said that after a lot of coach changes in recent times, he got “my head muddled a little bit” and now he’s looking to play more naturally, “get on with it a little bit more”. He also credits some off-the-table changes for helping his upturn in form this week: “I feel fitter, I feel stronger ... I feel like I’ve got everything in place now.”

If Allen can go all the way he’d complete the sweep of the Triple Crown events and be the first world champion from the island of Ireland since Ken Doherty in 1997. Allen is aware of the history: “Obviously there’s been no winner from Northern Ireland since 1985 [when Dennis Taylor beat Steve Davis], and that’s a long, long time. No one’s won it in my lifetime. It’d be nice to change that. But I can’t think like that now. If I was to win it, I’d be so proud, bringing back that trophy to Northern Ireland.”

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