Si fightback leaves Jones match finely poised at World Championship

A stirring evening comeback from Si Jiahui ensured that his last-16 World Championship match with Jak Jones is finely poised at 9-7 ahead of their third session on Saturday at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

The Chinese 23rd seed showed great composure to fight back after Jones held a commanding 6-2 lead after the first session, and has the momentum when the first-to-13 encounter resumes on Saturday.

Jones entered the evening seemingly in control of the match, but Si had five plus 50 breaks during the opening session, only to lose four frames on the black.

And Si made a statement of intent in the opening frame of the evening, compiling an 83, but Jones again picked up the next on the black to re-open his four-frame advantage.

A 55 quickly followed for Jones as the error count for Si grew, but he rallied in the 12th to drop in the green, brown, blue and pink to halve the deficit at 8-4.

Si then cut the arrears again after an error-laden 13th, with the Chinese player punishing Jones after he missed a rudimentary pink off its spot. Errors from both players continued in the next frame but Si dropped a difficult blue to cut the gap to two.

Jones stemmed the tide in the next, producing a run of 53 to ensure he would head into the third session with a lead.

He was, however, unable to further that lead with Si emerging from a protracted safety battle to head into Saturday’s final session trailing by two frames.