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Robertson powers into UK final with 3 tons

3 minute read

Australian star Neil Robertson booked a place in the UK Championship final with another command performance in the 6-2 semi-final win over China's Zhou Yuelong.

Neil Robertson believes he is playing the best snooker of his life as he powered into the final of the UK Championships with another magnificent performance in the game's second-biggest tournament.

The Australian left-hander compiled another three centuries en route to dismantling the hopes of young Chinese player Zhou Yuelong on Saturday in Milton Keynes' Marshall Arena.

Robertson raced to a 6-2 victory in the best-of-11 semi-final with his performance featuring a trio of three-figure breaks that takes his season-leading tally of centuries to 38.

"It's great to get the reward for the consistent performances I've been putting in this year," said the 38-year-old from Melbourne.

"This is the best I've ever felt with my game. Practising consistently, my club in Cambridge has been amazing during the lockdown period," former world champion Robertson told Eurosport after his win.

"It's another final and another opportunity to win one of the big three tournaments.

"I've been playing thicker safeties this week, getting the balls open so it gets your opponent under a lot more pressure knowing that if they don't knock in the long red, then I'm going to clear the table.

"In the two finals I lost this season, I probably could have grafted it out and played pretty ordinary snooker but I didn't want to win like that, I want to win the right way."

He is doing exactly that. World champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, watching from the commentary box, was adamant that Robertson's cue action was the finest the game had ever seen.

The Australian began where he left off in his thrashing of three-time world champion Mark Selby the previous day, racking up a 125 break in the second frame to quickly go 2-0 up.

Zhou got lucky in the third frame with an outrageous fluke that narrowed the deficit but the man from Melbourne roared back again with a 118 break to take a 3-1 lead into the interval.

Another run of 104 put Robertson 5-1 up and, after a brief show of resistance in the seventh frame from the 22-year-old Chinese player, he finished up with another break of 90, only looking irritated that he had not made a fourth hundred.

Robertson will meet England's Judd Trump in Sunday's final.

Trump, the 2019 world champion and current No.1, beat China's Lu Ning 6-2 in the second semi.

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