Davis reaches semis in Bulgaria

The St Leonards potter won five matches in the Bulgarian Open before eventually losing out to world number one Judd Trump.

Davis began his campaign on Friday morning with a narrow 4-3 win over 17-year-old Polish player Kacper Filipiak. Despite fashioning a 107 break in frame two, Davis only just made it over the line in the decider.

Later the same day, world number 16 Davis enjoyed a rather more comfortable 4-0 victory over 74th-ranked Belgian teenage talent Luca Brecel thanks to breaks of 41, 38, 40, 37 and 45.

He made it a hat-trick of successes on Friday with a 4-2 triumph over Paul Davison. Runs of 68 and 46 gave Davis the second and third frames before 70th-ranked Davison compiled a 140 to level at 2-2. He didn’t score another point after that, though, because Davis reeled off the next two with breaks of 80 and 63.

Davis then saw off Thepchaiya Un-Nooh by the same score in the last 16 on Sunday morning. Runs of 50, 70 and 39 gave Davis a 2-0 lead, and although the world number 73 got back on level terms, Davis conceded only one point in winning the next two via breaks of 132 and 83.

He achieved a third successive 4-2 win against 25th-ranked Tom Ford in the quarter-finals. Again Davis went two-up with three breaks over 30 before Ford won the third and fourth. Davis compiled breaks of 56 and 91 in the next two to seal victory.

Davis went 2-0 down in his semi-final against Trump and was 57 points adrift in the third before rallying to win that frame with a 64 and the next with a 118. Trump won the next two, however, and went on to whitewash John Higgins 4-0 in the final.