Cue Michaela – she'll call the shots at the world final

Published on Saturday 2 May 2009 19:43

SHAUN Murphy produced a three-frame blitz of stunning snooker to halt Neil Robertson's epic comeback and secure a place in the final of the Betfred.com World Championship.

The 2005 champion had lost seven frames in a row as Robertson pulled back from 14-7 down to 14-14 but the mid-session interval last night came at an unfortunate time for the Australian.

He had the momentum as they left the arena but, when they returned, a reinvigorated Murphy rattled off breaks of 106, 81 and 94 to win 17-14.

It was an incredible streak from Murphy, who had been completely off his game until the interval.

Tomorrow he and John Higgins will play the first two sessions of what promises to be an enthralling final between two former champions.

Robertson made the match a classic with his comeback but his hopes of becoming Australia's first World Championship finalist since the tournament moved to the Crucible in 1977 were ultimately dashed.

Murphy left the arena saluting the crowd, while Robertson pondered what might have been.

MICHAELA Tabb will welcome the fanfare and the flashbulbs greeting her when she steps out into the packed arena.

But above all she wants her first Betfred.com Snooker World Championship final to be all about the players. Tabb will today become the first woman to take charge of a Crucible final, eight years after joining the refereeing ranks.

"I want the big entrance and I know it's coming and I'm going to love that," said the 41-year-old, who lives in Dunfermline with her professional pool-player husband Ross McInnes.

"But as soon as the second player is out, and I say, 'Thank you. First frame', that's when it's time for me not to be there anymore, just to let the two players do their business."

Tabb, a mother of two and former sales rep, has already refereed in finals of the Masters, the China Open and the Welsh Open. She has been refereeing at the Crucible since 2003 and has vivid memories of her first match, the first-round clash between Mark King and Drew Henry.

"I was absolutely terrified," she said. "I set the table up three-quarters of an hour beforehand, and then my stomach was in knots, it was really hard."

She became the first woman to referee a Crucible match that day, and remembers the crowd's reaction. "MC Alan Hughes started to bring the referees out, and he said 'she', and all I remember is this buzz – it was like whispers – because they'd suddenly cottoned on," Tabb said.

"The crowd didn't know who was refereeing the match and it was just amazing. I walked out and it was fantastic, the best introduction I could have ever had. That will never leave me. Then I couldn't get the pink on its spot early in the match. I could get it behind a red ball, in the middle, and I was shaking like a leaf. My heart was going 10 to the dozen, but after that I had an opportunity to settle into it so I was all right."

Tabb has never looked back. However even if this year's final is a thriller, she will be unable to savour it until she watches a rerun.

"What a lot of people don't realise is that when you're refereeing you're not appreciating what they're doing at the table," Tabb said. "One of the best matches I've ever had was here last year when Ronnie O'Sullivan and Stephen Hendry played in the semi-final. It wasn't until afterwards that I realised how phenomenal that game had been."

O'Sullivan won it, 17-6, with a staggering performance. "The scores don't mean anything to me," Tabb said. "I just know that there are breaks going in and I'm putting balls on the spots. I had no comprehension that there were so many breaks and the safety play was phenomenal, because I'm not looking at the shot, I'm looking at where the ball finishes and where the other balls are. I'm not looking at the same thing."

Neil Robertson recovered from a dismal start to slash Shaun Murphy's lead to 14-10 after the third session of their semi-final. Murphy threatened to make the second 147 maximum break of the championship in the second frame in the morning but missed a difficult 11th red along the top cushion, but it didn't stop him moving from 9-7 to 14-7 ahead. Robertson, however, reeled off the final three frames of the session with breaks of 66, 68 and 101 to give the Australian fresh hope for the evening in the first-to-17 contest.

The pair were battling for a place in the final, where John Higgins is waiting. The Scot held a 13-3 lead over Mark Allen only for the Northern Irishman to fight back to 15-12. However, the Scot managed to hold his nerve for a 17-13 victory.