Murphy makes fine start to title defence at Championship League

Defending champion Shaun Murphy produced some peak form on Thursday to win Group 3 at the Championship League in Leicester.

The 2005 world champion dropped only one frame in completing victories over Steven Hallworth (3-0), Reanne Evans (3-1) and Tian Pengfei (3-0) to reach the last 32 of the season’s first ranking event at the Mattioli Arena.

Murphy ran in knocks of 61, 100 and 93 against Hallworth and 66, 75 and 72 in restricting Tian to only seven points in winning the section by three points ahead of Hallworth.

“I’m still chasing a few things in my career,” said Murphy. “To defend a tournament would be one. So first job done, and we’ll see what the next stage brings.”

Murphy returns to action on Friday when the second stage begins. He is in Group C alongside Long Zehuang, Jamie Jones and Hossein Vafaei.

Murphy was joined in the second group stage by Crucible semi-finalist David Gilbert, who produced a glorious 136 break in the final frame of the day to win Group 15 by the narrowest of margins.

In a section that saw all six matches finish 2-2, Gilbert edged out Xu Si’s 131 by five points having trailed the Chinese player 2-1 in a dramatic finale. He earlier drew with Andrew Pagett and Duane Jones, who also finished on three points.

Gilbert next faces Ashley Carty, He Guoqiang and Stuart Bingham in Group B on Friday.

Stage one consisted of 32 groups of four players. The eight group winners contest a further two groups with the winners meeting in the final.

There is £33,000 on the table for the winner plus a spot in the Champion of Champions later in the year which is worth another £12,500 for qualifying.