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| |  Friday, 14 December, 2001, 22:31 GMT Doherty through to final Doherty fluked the pink to seal his semi-final win Ken Doherty has reached the final of the UK Championship for the second time. The Irishman's fluke on the pink completed a 9-7 victory over Stephen Lee in York. Lee had staged a fine comeback which looked like ranking alongside those of Ronnie O'Sullivan and Mark Williams in the quarter-finals. That pair will meet on Saturday for the right to play Doherty in the final. Doherty's victory was far from a classic with neither he nor Lee finding any consistency. World number four Doherty had the better of the afternoon session and opened up a 5-3 lead.
On Friday evening Lee levelled at 6-6. Doherty regrouped and put himself on the brink of the final by taking the next two frames. He also rattled in the only century break of the match, a 106. LG Cup champion Lee stayed alive by winning a scrappy frame 15 and the standard plummeted even further in the next with the duo clearly feeling the pressure. It could still have gone either way on the colours, but Doherty had his nose in front when the pink bounced off three cushions and rolled into a baulk pocket. "The luck of the Irish must have been shining on me," said Doherty, whose previous appearance in the final ended with a 10-5 defeat by Stephen Hendry in Preston seven years ago. "It was incredibly tense and I think the only way I was going to pot the pink was by fluking it. "It's hard on Stephen to lose to a fluke - it doesn't seem fair. But luck plays its part in the game and that's the way it goes.
"I should have won 9-6 but there was so much tension and I found it very difficult to get over the line." World number eight Lee said: "I had an awful day. I don't know how I managed to win three frames in the first session and I didn't deserve to be level at 6-6. "I couldn't pot a long ball and I had no run all day. The way the match finished summed it up. "Ken didn't play all that well either but he was solid and did enough to win." | |
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