Ding Junhui lost to Murphy, Marco Fu upset world No 1

China's Ding Junhui plays against Shaun Murphy of England during the third round of the Snooker Haikou World Open 2014 in Haikou, Hainan province, March 13, 2014. Ding lost to Murphy 4-5. [Photo/Xinhua]

Haikou, China - Marco Fu of Hong Kong potted a respotted black in the deciding frame to earn a hard-fought 5-4 win against the world's top ranked Neil Robertson while local favorite Ding Junhui lost to Shaun Murphy 5-4 in the third round of the Snooker Haikou World Open 2014 on Thursday.

Fu will now meet Mark Joyce and Murphy will meet Graeme Dott in the quarterfinals.

Fu played quite well in the opening frame, and a break of 121 handed him the frame. Robertson quickly came back to win the next two frames with 61 and 127. But the 32-year-old Australian scored just one point in the next three frames as Fu fired in 127, 52 and 114 to take a 4-2 lead. Robertson then won the seventh and eighth frames for 4-4.

In the last frame, the two players battled intensely and it came down to the colors. Robertson potted brown and blue but then missed the pink, leading 49-36. Fu potted the pink and black to tie the scores, before he slotted the black in again after a respot for victory.

Ding did not find his touch in the early match when he lost the first frame after a break of 53. Ding quickly came back to win the second frame in one seesaw battle. But Murphy, used to be called as Ding's biggest nemesis in the past years, took a 3-1 lead on Ding's mistake.

Ding fired 92 and 76 in the following frames to equalize for 4-4 before he missed a blue in the decisive frame to let the game loose.

In Thursday's other matches, John Higgins lost 5-4 to Judd Trump, while defending champion Mark Allen beat Ricky Walden 5-2. Joyce beat Kurt Maflin 5-3, while China's Liang Wenbo lost 5-1 to Mark Selby.