Snooker: Shaun Murphy was "stunned" after producing one of the best Crucible comebacks ever this afternoon to beat Welshman Matthew Stevens and keep his World Championship dreams alive.
Murphy somehow battled back from 11-5 behind to snatch a dramatic 13-12 quarter-final victory. Not since Dubliner Ken Doherty fought back from 15-9 behind to beat Paul Hunter 17-16 in the 2003 World Championship semi-finals has the Crucible crowd ever witnessed such a swing in momentum.
Incredibly, Murphy, the 2005 world champion, won seven frames to edge over the winning line despite his opponent being an overwhelming favourite to progress to this year's last four.
And the world number four admitted he was still in a state of shock after his remarkable turnaround.
"I never truly believed I could win the match. I'm obviously stunned, I can't believe it," he said. "At 12-7 I started to think I could win because it's no secret that Matthew doesn't like leading and I knew that if I could start to win a couple more frames it would start to shake him a little bit.
"He was playing for a lot more than I was, he was playing for his top-16 spot, so there was a lot more riding on it for him than there was for me. I knew that if I could just put the pressure on him he might wander and fortunately for me it did."
He now meets either Leicester's Mark Selby or Tiptree's Ali Carter in the next round.
As if the defeat were not hard enough to stomach, the result means Stevens now drops out of the top 16 meaning he will have to qualify for next season's tournament.
"I'm still in shock. I had the game won at 11-5. What can you say? I got a few chances along the way. I should have won 13-7," he said. "I'm obviously devastated but that's the way it goes. I won the game last night in my mind. Funny things happen in snooker."